Death and devastation through a teenager's camera By Deepshikha Ghosh, Indo-Asian News Service New Delhi, Apr 23 (IANS) Somewhere in Gujarat, the tin shutter of a house-cum-shop balances precariously on its edge, spared the devastation that has razed the rest of the structure it once shielded. The shutter was donated to the widow who owned the shop, jointly by her Hindu and Muslim neighbours. Today it is the picture that speaks a thousand words about Gujarat, the land of Mahatma Gandhi, ravaged by unprecedented sectarian violence that has claimed nearly 900 lives till date. The narrator of the story this time is 15-year-old Sahir Raza, the student of a New Delhi school, who walked the streets of Gujarat armed with nothing more than a camera and a deep sense of horror at the mindless fury and its aftermath. The result was an eloquent mix of photographs, titled: "...and they killed him again" -- on display in a three-day exhibition. "Gujarat is in a terrible condition... People are trapped and have not returned home for 40 days," said Raza, recounting the plight of a boy of his age who had not been able to sit for his examinations because he was terrified to step out of his house. On his third major project since tackling the environment and the Yamuna river, the shy, gangly teenager was accompanied by his parents on his mission to capture the Gujarat carnage for posterity. "I had to wait for a long time before I could even dare to go to Gujarat and take photographs." He went only when the mobs had thinned considerably, but soon discovered that he had reached scenes of violence much before many victims who dared not return home. He concentrated on pockets where the violence had left in its wake plenty of poignant, even gruesome reminders. At Naroda Patiya, where some 90 Muslim men, women and children were roasted and their properties destroyed, Raza's images take a life of their own. "I have never seen frozen flames," he reports about a photograph showing charred remains of cloth and paper burnt on a cooking stove, and an orange burnt patch on the wall behind that uncannily resembles live flames. A freshly dug grave awaits a body in one still, while survivors in a refugee camp try to pick up the pieces by sewing and other activities in another. Open pages of charred books, broken toys, a watch that abruptly stopped, the haunted eyes of a woman whose son was roasted alive, deserted streets, razed mosques - Raza's eyes rarely miss details that are often passed up in inquiry reports and official versions. The young shutterbug who took up the passion for photography at the age of nine admitted he was afraid to even venture to some areas for fear of being targeted by mobs. "I am not a practicing Muslim, but people like me are targeted just because our name is Muslim." When Raza went to Ahmedabad, he could not shake off his nervousness. "There were lots of places where the tension was so thick that I couldn't dare to get off, click my photograph and jump back in." He recalled a particularly tense day when he photographed an audacious banner put up by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) - "Welcome to the Hindu Rashtra (nation)." It had to be a quick job. But his worst experience was looking at photographs that a Muslim family friend showed him of the killings. "They were the most ugly photographs I had ever seen - it was ghastly," said Raza, shutting his eyes at the memory. Living in New Delhi hasn't really left the 15-year-old untouched by the sectarian violence raging in Gujarat. "What is happening in Gujarat is affecting the whole country. I know I will also be targeted some day because of my name..." --Indo-Asian News Service