Photo: Vijay Pandey
It was the last Friday of the holy month of Ramzan, seven years ago on 19 September 2008, when gun shots broke the eerie silence at the time of Juma(Friday prayers) in Batla House, a predominantly Muslim ghetto located in the banks of Yamuna in south Delhi. Even before the residents could enquire, TV channels started flashing news that an encounter was ongoing between allegedIndian Mujahideen (IM) operatives and the special cell of Delhi police.
It was soon declared that two terrorists, Atif and Sajid, were gunned down by the police. It was reported that some were arrested while others managed to flee. The common thread linking them all was that they belonged to Azamgarh in eastern Uttar Pradesh. This one incident was to set a precedent. Azamgarh, once known for its literary heritage, would now be commonly known as Atankgarh(terror hub).
Seven years later, there is no physical reminiscence of the alleged encounter; the flat in the building L-18 no longer has blood stains on its wall, the area is no more cordoned off and people are no longer scared of wandering at night. However, the memories are still fresh and many consider it as cold-blooded murder. This keeps them going in their demands for a free and fair judicial enquiry into the alleged encounter despite National Human Rights Commission giving a clean chit to theDelhi Police.
This year again, on 19 September, the narrow lanes of Batla House echoed with slogans demanding judicial enquiry into the allegedly fake encounter. In the fading light of the evening, the flame of torches as well as the hope of the protestors kept these alleys bright. However, for many otherresidents, it is just a ritual that is being carried out for the last seven years, ever since the alleged encounter killed inspector Mohan Chand Sharma and the two ‘terrorists’.
Similar protests were also organised in Lucknow by civil right activists, who, like the residents of Batla House, doubt that encounter was fake and demand a judicial enquiry. But hundreds of kilometers away from Batla House and Lucknow, there was a stirring silence in Azamgarh. The evening was like any other and there were no torches in sight.
Azamgarh and Delhi are separated by a distance of more than 500 km. But if there could be a mechanism to measure the distance in time, it could well go into decades, if not centuries. Unlike the glittery nights of Delhi, the ones in this town are empty. It is past 8 pm and the shops have already shut down.
This correspondent met the father of one of the alleged Indian Mujahideenoperatives, Mohammad Saif, who now languishes in a jail in Delhi on many terror charges that fall under the UAPA (Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act). His house looks like a small villa by metro standards. Mohammad Shadab, Saif’s father, welcomed us with a cup of lemon tea and tales that do not fall in the mainstream narratives of the encounter. He claims that his son was as innocent as any other boy of his age and he has still not been able to comprehend the reason why things went so wrong.
In an attempt to stop himself from breaking down, he passes a smile that is barely visible in the dim light of the lantern, lights up a smoke and hums the famous Dev Anand song, har fikr ko dhuein mein uda ta chala gaya… (I blew away all my worries in smoke… ). Our conversation moved on from the specific case of Saif to others involved in the encounter and eventually to the fate of the whole city.
“People once recognised Azamgarh as a centre of culture, art and academics. People such as Shibli Nomani (Islamic scholar), Maulana Wahiduddin Khan(Islamic scholar), Kaifi Aazmi(poet), Shabana Aazmi (actress), Ram Naresh Yadav (Governor of Madhya Pradesh) and Frank F Islam (US-based entrepreneur) belonged to this place. But the media has stereotyped this place as a terror hub. They did not even wait for the courts to pronounce their judgments in the cases of our kids. Instead, they ran stories on how this place is breeding terrorists,” he says.
Shadab does break down when he narrates the story of two brothers, who had gone to meet Salman (another terror accused) in Jaipur. He says the duo, who were brothers, were also arrested and cases under IPC 109 and 151 were registered against them. “Now does that mean that we can’t even meet our kids languishing in jails?” he asks.
“We were once proud to be a resident of Azamgarh, to be associated with a place that has been a part of the ancient Kosala kingdom. It was known as the land of sage Durvasa, whose Ashram was located here. What a pity that people have started recognising it as a place that breeds people who indulge in anti–national activities. Somehow, State agencies relate every act of terror to here or Darbhanga in Bihar,” says another resident who joined us in the conversation.
“Residents of Azamgarh have for long been known for migrating to the Gulf and other countries to earn and send money back home,” Shadab says. “Initially, a lot of people shifted to Pakistan during partition and later to Bangladesh. The trend of migrating to the Gulf started in the 1980s. And this kept the city prosperous despite the lack of industries and educational opportunities,” he adds.
However, in the 1990s, Indian market was opened to the world and jobs were created along with a boom in the education industry. Students from Azamgarhstarted migrating to other cities for jobs and education rather than going to African and Gulf countries. However, this didn’t continue for long.
The Terror Of The Terror Label
No prospects at home. The fear of moving out. Discrimination and stereotyping. The branding of Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh as a terror hub leaves its beleagured youth in despair.
Cordon Police presence at Batla House, New Delhi, in the aftermath of the encounter
Following the ban imposed on Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and subsequent arrests of students from Azamgarhfrom different parts of India in early 2000s, the youth started to fearventuring out. Things got worse after the 2008Batla House encounter, after which the entire town and surroundingvillages were popularly termed as Atankgarh. “One of the first persons to use the term was controversial BJP MP Yogi Adityanath,” observes Masiuddin Sanjhri, a social activist based in Sanjarpur, a neighbouring village of the Azamgarh town.
Many other families from Sanjarpur as well as the nearby Saraimir have their sons in jails on terror charges. There are long lists of those who were arrested ordeclared as absconding.
According to most of the residents of the town, the worst nightmare comes when there is a bomb blast in any part of the country. The Intelligence, the UP Special Task Force and the other agencies comb the town in search for suspects.
“Whenever there is a blast, we are advised to not move out of our madrasas by aalims, since police can trap us in the case,” says a madrasa student refusing to disclose his name out of fear.
Our next destination was the house of Shahid Badar. Badar was the president of the banned Student IslamicMovement of India (SIMI). The DelhiHigh Court had lifted the ban on the organisation in August 2008, only for the then UPA government to obtain a stay order from the Supreme Court.
A half an hour drive on roads full of potholes took us to the residence of Badar. He was among the first terror accused to be arrested from Azamgarh after the ban onSIMI. However, in March this year, a Delhi court acquitted him of the chargesagainst him.
Recalling his fate Badar says, “I was arrested and tortured in police custody because I belonged to SIMI. The matter of the ban can be contested. But the graver concern is the many innocent students picked up on charges of terror who lost the chance to lead a normal life.
“The label of terror has fallen on this place precisely because of people like me on whom fake charges were slapped. I feel guilty about it without there being any fault of mine. My beloved city had to bear the tag of a terror hub and our children who wanted to pursue their beautiful dreams outside the city had to suffer unnecessarily.”
Badar recalls a couple of instances which shows the levels to which the fears about the place has escalated. “A few years ago, a doctor while passing through the Sanjarpur Village fainted in distress because he had landed in a terrorist zone,” Badar says. “But later, people from the same village helped him regain his calm. A reporter who once came from Delhi to meet me confessed that before reaching the place that he was panicking and his colleagues had asked him to be extra cautious.”
Badar explains that the unfortunate incidents in the last few years have changed the city socially and economically. The trend that had started in the 1990s to seek education and employment in India itself has reversed again. Now kids are scared to move to Indian cities and prefer to stay back in town or else move to the Gulf. But there is a major hurdle in this too.
Some of the youths from the district became members of the Rashtriya Ulema Council, which was a political outfit formed in the aftermath of Batla Houseencounter. The state government slapped cases against these youth for participating in the protests under the banner of the council and hence, they are denied passports.
A young member of the Ulema council says that he has been trying for a passport for a long time. “I was angry when the Batla House encounter took place and I joined an organisation to vent my anger. Cases were filed against me. Now I want to travel to the Gulf and support my family but I am helpless. I have to stay back inAzamgarh and wait for these cases to be dismissed before applying for a passport. The wait may go on until the time to earn and support my family is gone.”
The next morning as we prepared to leave the city, we could see billboards of coaching centres for IITs and medical colleges.The most prominent and visible ones were for spoken English classes. It indicated that despite the challenges, the city and its young are still trying hard to make it into the mainstream life.
The fear of the youth to migrate to other cities is not unfounded. They often face the wrath of the stereotypes that exist about the place. A top corporate executive, who refuses to be named, tells Tehelka, “There are certain biases against people from Azamgarh when we are hiring. It is not that we don’t trust them. But we have our own safety concerns and don’t want to risk them.”
This reminds this correspondent of a lawyer who had told him how he was once denied a job in 2010 after the employer got to know that he was from Azamgarh. It was when arrests from the district were frequent.
This discrimination has more far reaching effects. Students living in metros find it difficult to find houses on rent. Shahid, a university student in Delhi, says, “Every time I finalise a deal for renting a house, it gets cancelled at the last minute. It is because that is the time when the landlord discovers that I am from Azamgarh. And this happens too often in Jamia Nagar, where the alleged encounter took place in 2008.”
Back in Azamgarh, amidst the suffering of the people, what remains at the back foot is development. The town remains devoid of basic infrastructure — from good hospitals to schools, colleges and industries. Political outfits like Ulema Council which flourished riding on the sentiments in the aftermath of the Batla Houseencounter have ceased to have any significant existence. The dismal state of affairs is despite Mulayam Singh himself being the Member of Parliament from the Azamgarh constituency.
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