They are the alleged perpetrators of the worst terror strikes on India in recent years, but back home, their families are still to come to terms with it. The Sunday Express meets the families the accused SIMI members left behind

Safdar Nagori’s father, a retired sub-inspector, often goes to the town’s police station just to show he has nothing to do with his son.
SIMI ideologue Safdar Nagori’s name invokes intense reactions in most circles but it brings an unmistakable smile to the face of his friend Muzammil Hussain as he prepares to leave for his afternoon prayers. “He was always like that,” the tall, soft-spoken man says, “I used to spend several hours with him. He loved to document everything. He never forced me to join SIMI.”
In Nagori Colony, the biggest settlement in this small town of transporters, the alleged mastermind of the Gujarat serial blasts does not have too many critics. They are quick to distance themselves and say he hardly lived here. Their only worry: will the high-profile ideologue’s association with the town affect their transport business? “Why does the media keep naming the town he abandoned nearly 15 years ago?” asks Salim Nagori, an elderly man in Mahidpur’s civic body. “Has anyone else been arrested from here?”
The Muslim community takes its surname from Nagor in Rajasthan, from where its forefathers migrated and settled here. The community owns close to 700 trucks, 600 of which ply between Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, mainly transporting marble, Kota stone and soap powder.
But Safdar’s family claims to own nothing but a shop, Diamond Auto Parts, and gets additional income from his father Zahir-ul-Hasan’s pension. Safdar’s father retired in 2005 as assistant sub-inspector after “41 years of service without a single blemish”. More than his son’s activities, what affects him is the usual round of questioning by his peers or seniors. He often goes to the town’s police station just to show he has nothing to do with his son.
Safdar’s father tried to dissuade him from being influenced by SIMI. “The organisation was always under a cloud,” says the former cop. But his transfers kept him away from his son, something he believes led to his going astray. “Safdar was good at studies but we never got along well,” he says.
His elder son Haider Hussain, 42, is a post-graduate in arts. Besides running the shop, he teaches part-time at a local school. His youngest son Zafar Hussain is a victim of Down syndrome and the two sisters are already married.
Zahir-ul-Hasan might have been a policemen but he doubts the police’s theories against his son, who was arrested from Indore in March this year. “He might have printed and distributed pamphlets and given speeches, but I don’t believe he could have taken part in the bombing,” the 63-year-old says.
_MILIND GHATWAI

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