For the family of Mohammad Aamir and Hashim, it was a homecoming it never wished for.
Not heeding to the warning of their brother Nasir, 25-year-old Aamir and 16-year-old Hashim, set out on Wednesday evening from their grandmother's house in Sundar Nagri to return home in Old Mustafabad, amid raging violence in northeast Delhi.
The next day, their family rushed to the GTB Hospital and identified the bodies that had been pulled out of a drain in Gokalpuri.
"Amir had called around 8.30 pm and said they would be home in just five minutes. Hashim was with him on a bike. But, they did not return. Later, when we called his phone, it was not reachable," 20-year-old Nasir said.
The family started searching for them as Ganga Vihar in Gokalpuri was the last place Amir had called them from.
"We could not find them. We reached Gokalpuri police station where a woman police officer told us that their bodies were fished out from a drain and sent to the GTB Hospital," Nasir said.
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Their grieving mother Asghari blamed politicians for the violence in northeast Delhi in which at least 42 people have died and over 250 have been injured.
"Everyone knows who is responsible for their killing. They are the same politicians who have been spreading hatred against us. We just want peace. I do not want anyone to lose their children as I have," she said.
Aamir, who is survived by his four-year-old and six-month-old daughters, worked as a driver and Hashim, a school dropout, assisted him.
Locals gathered at the brothers' home in a narrow bylane of the 25 Foota Road in Old Mustafabad.
"Media blames us. The politicians who are responsible for spewing venom and giving hate speeches are untouched as the judge who ordered for registration of cases against them was transferred overnight," said a neighbour of the family, referring to the transfer of Delhi High Court Judge S Muralidhar to the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
The family is yet to get the bodies as the post mortem would be carried out tomorrow, Nasir said.