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Disbelief and shock in Azamgarh

PHOTO: PTI

Security check: Police frisk passengers coming from Mumbai and Delhi at Azamgarh railway station on Thursday in the wake of recent terrorist blasts.

AZAMGARH: The people of Azamgarh least expected their backward district tucked away in the eastern corner of Uttar Pradesh to be labelled the ‘nursery’ of terrorism. The mood is one of disbelief and deep shock. Even anger. Their reaction is on predictable lines. Known as the centre of communal harmony since the days of Allama Shibli Nomani, and an erstwhile bastion of the Communists and Socialists, giving to the country stalwarts like Kaifi Azmi and Brigadier Usman, Azamgarh has been at the receiving end of developmental activities launched by successive State governments.

Backwardness has been the bane of Azamgarh. For hundreds, though, backwardness has acted as a catalyst for change forcing them to venture out in search of livelihood and pursue education. The recent serial blasts in Delhi and Ahmedabad and the alleged involvement of the Muslim youth belonging to Sanjarpur and Beena Para villages of the Sarai Mir area in the district has shifted the focus back on Azamgarh. Sarai Mir, a prosperous qasbah situated on the Azamgarh-Shahganj road, about 25 km from the district headquarters, has been in the news ever since Abu Salem, a former henchman of Dawood Ibrahim, was arrested.

The five suspected Indian Mujahideen operatives arrested by the Mumbai police on Wednesday were also from Azamgarh district. On Tuesday, the ATS and Delhi police raided Sanjarpur village to arrest four other alleged IM operatives said to be involved in the Delhi serial blasts.

“The possibility of some black sheep in every community cannot be denied but to suggest that young Muslim boys belonging to the villages in the district were involved in terror activities is uncalled for. There is a definite design behind the moves to target the community and tarnish the name of Azamgarh. Generalisation does not help the cause of communal harmony,” says Wasiuddin, a professor in the Shibli National College here.

Dr. Wasiuddin says that notwithstanding the creation of a separate Mau district (Mau was earlier included in Azamgarh), things are not better off on the development front. The district has a population of about 40 lakh and since job opportunities are negligible, the people, especially the Muslims have been moving out to other cities like Mumbai, and even to far off places like Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Dubai and the Middle East countries, he says. For the illiterate and poor Muslims, the Gulf countries are a favourite destination. Azamgarh police sources claim that on an average 1000 to 1500 passport verification inquiries are received every month by the department, with around 90 per cent for the Gulf.

The boom started in the 1970s when the residents of Sarai Mir, Sanjarpur, Beena Para, Belariaganj, Mubarakpur, Deogaon and Nizamabad went over to Saudi Arabia and Dubai for earning a livelihood. Initially, it were the poor and illiterate who moved out to the Middle East. Since, the income was good, members of slightly well off families also took up jobs in Dubai and other Gulf countries.

“Azamgarh receives the biggest inflow of Gulf money in the entire Purvanchal region,” says Banwari Jalan, a senior journalist of the city. Mr. Jalan is convinced that a mere two to four per cent of the youths who have ventured out may be involved in nefarious activities and Azamgarh’s name was needlessly being tarnished.

Despite the prosperity and the recent incidents related to terror, the district has been relatively free from communal tension, till violence broke out in the Takiya area of the city last month, allegedly on account of administrative and police inefficiency.

Apart from the contribution of Shibli Nomani and Kaifi Azmi, the fact that Azamgarh was a Communist and Socialist stronghold helped preserve communal amity. Chandrajit Yadav, who was twice the CPI MLA from Mohammadabad and later joined the Congress, Communist leaders Jharkande Rai and Jai Bahadur Singh and Socialists Vishram Rai, Uma Shankar Mishra and Shiv Ram Rai belonged to the district.

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