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Sheikh's experience of what University of Washington political scientist Paul Brass calls militant Hindus' "institutionalized riot systems" was all too common in Gujarat. But it is her tale of what followed that is now forcing the nation to examine how deeply anti-Muslim prejudice permeates the state. In the riots' aftermath, what set Sheikh apart from other victims was her steadfast refusal to recant her police statement identifying her attackers. "My brother received threats on his mobile phone from politicians. They would say, 'Do you value your life? Your family's life? Tell your sister to change her testimony or we'll kill you all.'" But Sheikh refused, exhorting her brother to remember the sight of their sister Sabira perishing in the flames. Finally, on May 17, Sheikh's day in court came.
When she arrived at the courthouse steps, Sheikh says, local BJP leader Madhu Srivastava intercepted her and said "you are not going to get justice." In addition, she claims, "He asked me, 'Is your life or the lives of your family not precious to you?'" (Confronted with Sheikh's allegations, Srivastava told TIME, "These Muslim women are lying. I have never threatened them. They have entered into a conspiracy with [the opposition] Congress Party to defame me and the nationalistic BJP. I am the most popular leader in my constituency. Otherwise I would not have been elected. The Congress [Party] is provoking Muslims to make false statements for its own political gains.")
As Sheikh recalls it, the courtroom was packed with militant Hindus, staring at her and making threatening gestures. At this last moment, Sheikh's nerve failed her. She told prosecutor Raghuvir Pandya that she hadn't been able to see her attackers in the dark and smoke. Pandya, a BJP member who Sheikh says had not met his star witness before her court appearance, questioned her briefly, then let her go. "I had two choices: to speak for my dead relatives or to keep quiet for my living ones," she says. "I chose the latter." She was one of 41 witnesses who had changed their statements; soon afterwards, the case collapsed and all 21 accused walked free.
Moreover, Sheikh's case is not even particularly unusual. Hindu riots in India over the past two decades have cost the lives of more than 6,000 people, yet only a handful of Hindus have been convicted. Justice is even rarer in a state where some public prosecutors owe their jobs to the BJP's hard-line icon Narendra Modi, who did little to control the riots and was re-elected last December on a wave of Hindu nationalism, and where Pravin Togadia, the extremist general secretary of the BJP-allied Vishwa Hindu Parishad, has his main support base. (Togadia once informed TIME that a third of Indian Muslims were "jihadis" and that all jihadis—50 million people, by his math—should be "executed.") Indeed, an indication of which way the courts are leaning in three other Gujarat massacre cases—in which the death tolls were 89, 42 and 38—can be found in the release on bail of all but 10 of the 114 alleged murderers, rapists and arsonists.
Nonetheless, Sheikh says she retains her faith in the Indian justice system and in the humanity of most Hindus. "I don't believe Hindus everywhere are like this," she says, mentioning several Hindu friends and neighbors and even policemen who encouraged her to go to court. "If there's a divide here, it is between those who want to see justice done and those who don't."
But for terrorist Umar, Gujarat and the unabashed prejudice that followed was a breaking point. "If the government continues on this path, we will go to any extreme," he warns. "As they reach their peak, so will we."