Dadri lynching: Ikhlaq's son Danish speaks out, says no desire to go back home

New Delhi: Twenty-two-year-old Danish, victim of Dadri lynching episode that promulgated the debate on intolerance to a whole new level, has said that he feels unsafe to return to his village and he would never want to go back.

According to an NDTV report, Danish, who met the Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow on Sunday, said " "We were beaten that day for no fault of ours. We were attacked without any reason. If you stay in a village where very few of your own community live, and then you are beaten without any reason, can you go back? I don't ever want to go back."

Danish, along with his father Mohammad Ikhlaq, 52, were dragged out of their home and beaten with bricks following announcements in a local temple that the family had consumed beef. With crumbled bones and eyes that had to be surgically fixed after they popped out during to the attacks, Danish survived, and is now put up in Chennai with his brother Sartaj, who works in the Air force.

But Danish said what hurt him more is that his attackers were the very people he grew up with. "Those who beat us, they were all friends. I knew 60-70 per cent of the attackers. We had shut our gate but it was not bolted. Then we heard the mob pushing hard at our door, which gave way. I recognized those who held me, I recognized those who killed my father," he said, adding that he was still lost on why the whole incident occurred.

"I was wounded very badly, but mostly here," he is to have said, placing his hand over his heart.