Village on edge since Muslim voted pradhan

Some distance from the house of the girl allegedly raped, a group of young men are huddled together, used by now to giving directions to the house. Start talking to them and the disdain for “Mohammedans” is clear. “There is no overt animosity but things are changing. Maybe it started from the election of Nawab (village pradhan now in police custody) or maybe it relates to a larger political game in the state, but they have been becoming more assertive. How else would they dare do this to a Hindu girl?” says Anil Tyagi.

The Muslim neighbourhood cannot stop talking about how “village politics” has drawn first blood with the arrest of the pradhan. Conversation keeps going back to the time after the election of Nawab, around the same time the Samajwadi Party came to power in the state, when moves began for the construction of a new gate of a mosque.

“There is a house just beside the mosque, a Hindu household, who were not happy with the construction of the gate. Tensions simmered and pradhanji decided to go to court. We won and the gate was constructed. They were angry and threatened to send him to jail. That was the beginning of their open questioning of pradhanji’s authority. Every time he would go to mediate over a dispute, they would say he is partisan. This case is how they have got back at him,” says Irfan, a neighbour of Nawab.

Elderly men talk about a waning Hindu presence in Muslim festivals. “They still come to greet us but that old camaraderie is gone. The fact that the village has a Muslim pradhan has left Hindus disgruntled. When there was a Hindu pradhan, Muslims did not question his authority,” says Shamim, 80.

A stone’s throw from Nawab’s house is the madarsa where the alleged rape victim used to teach. There are no students there now, only policemen lazing away in polythene chairs and a mohtamim offering his prayers. Ameeruddin, the head of the madarsa, says there is no communal feeling in the village. “There are other Hindu girls who teach here,” he claims, though villagers junk that claim.

At Yashoda Hospital in Ghaziabad, where the alleged victim is admitted, a relative says, “I had once told her, ‘Why teach in a madarsa?’ She said the money is good.”  The girl’s father says, “She earned Rs 700 in the local school; the madarsa gave her Rs 1,500. I thought it was a temporary thing.”