Late into July and in a space of a single week, two distinct revelations descended on Beed—disclosing two diametric destinies.

This central Maharashtra district woke up one morning to the horror of finding one of its own boys, Mohammed Faiyaz, 24, emerge a key suspect in the July 11 train blasts in Mumbai. Then, Navanath Faratade, a hugely talented but as yet fringe marksman from a village here, surprised India’s shooting fraternity assembled in Zagreb for the World Championships with a stunning score of 596 out of a possible 600.

Faratade had never bettered 593 on his Fenwick P70, even in training, to merit serious consideration. But then, neither had Faiyaz attracted attention—not the least that could hint at his turning into a dreaded conduit for terror.

Son of a school teacher, Faiyaz was known to speak little.

Faratade, born to a marginal farmer in the elevated plateau-village of Charhata, was also reserved by disposition. Before he moved to Kolhapur at 11, he often spent hours on his farm atop a hill, glancing into a geography text-book and wondering if he would ever visit the thick-black-dots of Delhi or Mumbai. He rarely made conversation, and spoke only when spoken to. Beed’s seeming silence then gave way to contrasting actions.

Faratade, picked by the state government’s talent-spotting scheme went on to Akola and then proceeded to Krida Prabodhini in Kolhapur, flexing his fingers on the trigger of an air rifle, breaking away from the tending of a four-acre plot, of which only two-and-a-half acre was cultivable.

... contd.