Women in black abayas and niqabs stood shoulder to shoulder, some whispering prayers, others openly weeping. Many had never attended a public protest before. Yet on Sunday evening, they stepped out of their homes, bringing children, sisters and elderly mothers along at Delhi’s Shah-e-Mardan Karbala in Jor Bagh, to mourn the killing of Iran’s Supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
For them, this was not distant geopolitics. It felt personal.
Zaibun Nisa Zaidi from Laxmi Nagar arrived with six members of her family. She clutched her candle tightly as she spoke, her voice steady but her eyes moist.
“He stood for humanity. He raised his voice for the oppressed,” she said. “What was the fault of an 86-year-old man? If standing with humanity is a crime, then we are all guilty.”
Around her, women nodded in agreement.
Dilkash, a first-year BSc student from Ghaziabad, said she woke up to the news early in the morning. The shock, she said, stayed with her through the day.
“He was a rehbar, a guide,” she explained softly. “He united Shias and Sunnis across the world and always sided with the oppressed. His demise is not just a community’s loss. It is a loss for the world.”
A few steps away stood Seerat, balancing her one-year-old daughter on her lap. The child, unaware of the gravity of the gathering, played with the edge of her mother’s niqab. Seerat, however, could barely contain her tears.
“It is the loss of a century,” she said, breaking down mid-sentence. “He was like a father to us. This feels like we have lost someone from our own home.”
Seerat, a mourner carrying her one-year-old child in the protest.
Her sister, Shahana, described how the family reacted when news first emerged of the attack on Iran. “We stopped cooking. We did not eat properly. We kept praying for his safety,” she said. “When his death was confirmed on Sunday morning, we wept as if we had lost a family member.”
For 53-year-old Nishat Fatima, the journey to the vigil was physically demanding. Unwell but determined, she came from New Ashok Nagar.
Holding her daughter’s hand, she said, “I had to come,” she said. “It was important to be present. It was an inhuman act against an elderly man.”
As candles flickered in the evening breeze, the gathering remained peaceful. There were prayers, tears and quiet conversations about faith, justice and loss.
Women protesters at Shah e Mardan in Delhi, hold Ayatollah Khameinei, Iran’s supreme leader who was killed in Israel-US strikes.
In those lanes of Karbala in South Delhi, thousands of kilometres from Tehran, grief dissolved borders. For the women who gathered there, the passing of an 86-year-old leader was not merely a headline. It was a moment of mourning that felt intimate, immediate and deeply personal.
– Ends
Published By:
Zafar Zaidi
Published On:
Mar 2, 2026 14:23 IST
