The excitement and confusion at the platform in Deoband is usual. People scurry around looking for their coaches, some managing to hop on as the train pulls out and others missing it altogether as it pulls out of the station at 12 pm. But this is no ordinary train. Decked with posters, the 18-coach Sheikh-Ul-Hind Express is a special train that’s carrying about 2,000 clerics to Hyderabad for the 29th conference of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind that will be held on November 8 and 9. It’s also carrying a message of peace and national integration and with it a hope that people will see them as men of peace and not supporters of terror.

The train is named after Maulana Mehmud Hasan or Sheikh-Ul-Hind, who was the guiding force behind the formation of the Jamiat that went on to become one of India’s leading Islamic organisations. At present, it has 10 million primary members and a notable presence in towns and villages across India.

Abdul Wajid has come to Deoband to board the Sheikh-Ul-Hind Express from Rampur, some 200 km away. The madrasa teacher has attended many conferences of the Jamiat but realises the importance of the Hyderabad meet in these times. And so do the hundreds of clerics who have boarded the Aman Ekta Karwan from neighbouring Muzaffarnagar, Bijnore, and other western Uttar Pradesh towns and from Uttarakhand.

The organisation, that was founded in 1919 and led a prominent role in the freedom struggle, last held its conference in 2005. The issue it debated then was reservations for Muslims, now it’s terror.

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