The four-storey, Rs 19-crore complex was inaugurated by Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Locals said she owed it to them. During a visit to the town after it was hit by riots in 2001, Gandhi had responded to demands from local Muslims and promised that her party’s state government would build a new hospital.

At that time, the town with a population of around 4 lakh then had only a 30-bed government hospital. Private hospitals and nursing homes were in the Hindu areas across the Mausam river that runs through the town and also cuts a religious swathe through it. If there was communal tension in the town, as there often is, Muslims did not dare cross the bridge and risk a trip to the private hospitals.

But Gandhi’s promise didn’t seem like it would materialise any time soon even though construction of the hospital was started. When Malegaon was hit by serial bomb blasts in 2006 that killed 37 Muslims at a local mosque and Gandhi visited the town again, some locals had confronted her about how a new hospital could have saved more lives. Malegaon was hit by a bomb attack again last year — the Maharashtra ATS later zeroed-in on a group of Hindu hardliners as the perpetrators — but the hospital was still not ready.

Today, the locals heaved a sigh of relief, though a bit belatedly. “I am somewhat happy that the death of my son has given the town this much-needed hospital,” said Shafiq Mohammed Salim, who lost his 18-year-old son and 17-year-old nephew in the 2006 blasts and had raised his voice when Gandhi had come visiting then. “If we had not staged such an open protest at the time of her last visit, we would not have seen this day.”

Obviously aware of the communal lines dividing the town, Gandhi made repeated references to the need for peace and communal harmony for development but refrained from going too much into the past, apparently avoiding reopening old wounds.

“The last time I came here, it was a time which tested our integrity, we were saddened as the city had been hit by communal violence,” she said in her speech. “Our belief is that we keep divisions aside and stand together for the development of the country.”

Local Congressmen hope that the new hospital will help foster that ambition. The new hospital is built on a four-acre plot on what used to be an open space along the Mausam river. Although it is on the “Hindu side” of the river, it is right on the banks and is also served by a new bridge that links it easily to the Muslim pockets on the other side.

It is also one of the largest hospitals in the region with a swank structure, airy interiors, labeled rooms and planned space management. It will offer services in fourteen branches such as paediatrics, surgery, gynaecology, dentistry, psychiatry, dermatology, besides having physicians.

Considering the large local Muslim population — about 70 per cent of the 7.5 lakh people — the hospital will also have a Unani medicine unit along with Ayurveda and Homoeopathy. Four operation theatres have been distributed to the departments of general surgery, orthopaedic, gynaecology and eye surgery.