When Mohammed Nasir was five years old, a boy called Ahmed sat across from him in class at the local school in Azamgarh, a small town in eastern Uttar Pradesh.
They weren’t particularly good friends; they sometimes shared their snack box.
Two decades on, Ahmed is on a fairly long list of Azamgarh natives suspected of terror links.
And because Mohammed sat across from him in school all those years ago, the software engineer has quit his job with a multinational in Gurgaon and is now tilling his family’s paddy field back home.
Such is the fear of being branded a terrorist for those born in the nursery of terror.
“My parents saw Ahmed on TV and panicked,” says Mohammed. “I’m an only son. They didn’t want me picked up as well.”
About 300 kilometres east of the state capital of Lucknow, the one-time literary and cultural hub of Azamgarh has been nicknamed Atankgarh (Town of Terrorists) by the media, after a number of alleged terror operatives were arrested for their involvement in a series of blasts across the country.
Back home, as the list of suspects grew, life changed for an entire generation.
Young men who had left home for well-paid jobs in the metros were thrown out by their landlords.
Those who were not evicted were called back by families frantic with fear.
Yusuf Ali, a software engineer, lost his job with a Noida-based multinational after his landlord kicked him out.
“We can’t take the risk of renting our home to a native of Azamgarh,” the landlord said, according to Ali.
Unlike Nasir, Ali does not have fields to tend.
He is now looking for a job in the towns that still accept people from here.
“People tell me the situation is better in Lucknow and Aligarh,” he says, sitting with a group of unemployed friends at a tiny tea stall.
Since there are few job opportunities in Azamgarh, their dreams hinged on moving to the dream factories — the big cities where hard worked equalled success.
“Now, fear dogs our every step,” says Mustafa, who gave up his pursuit of an MBA in Delhi and returned home after being evicted by his landlord.
“Most of us even avoid using cellphones. We fear stepping out of our town.”
Tapping into the anger and frustration of these youngsters, the Ulema Council, a four-month-old body that grew out of the Batla House encounter in Delhi, has made ‘Justice for Azamgarh youth’ its main agenda in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Two young men from Azamgarh — one just out of high school — were killed and another arrested in the encounter last September.
The Ulema Council is contesting from five seats in UP, two of them in Azamgarh.
With its headquarters at the city’s oldest madrassa (Islamic religious school), Maulana Rashadi, the head of the council and the madrassa, holds daily pre-poll meetings with the two candidates.
“We have three Hindu candidates contesting on Ulema council tickets. The image problem is not restricted to Muslims,” says Rashadi.
Recently, a group of Hindu boys from Azamgarh was picked up by the police.
“Being from Atankgarh, as you media people call our town, is enough for the police,” Rashadi says.
In Azamgarh, Dr. Javed Akhtar (52), the town’s most respected orthopaedic surgeon, and Chander Ram Saroj (44), an advocate and former Congress member, will contest on Ulema Council tickets.
“We want to project Dr. Akhtar as the new face of Azamgarh. He is not a militant but an educated doctor,” says a party worker.
The mainstream political parties, meanwhile, have put up candidates in keeping up with the town’s image of crime and violence.
The Bahujan Samajwadi Party’s Akbar Ahmad Dumpy and the Samajwadi Party’s Durga Yadav have half a dozen criminal cases each pending against them.
The Bharatiya Janata Party’s Ramakant Yadav outdoes them both. With 34 criminal cases to his credit, Yadav is the most renowned of the three. The charges against him include burying people alive and planning an attack on Chief Minister Mayawati at the state guesthouse in 1995.
The Congress has still not named its candidate.
Back at the tea stall, the young men spend hours discussing how the image of the town can be changed.
“We all have a common dream: To prove to our country that we are as patriotic as people from other towns,” says Nasir.
“Yes, 21 people from our town have been chargesheeted. But we’re 42 lakh people. Must we all be condemned?”
(Some names have been changed to protect identities)