If there is one reason why the Centre rushed in forces to Malegaon just hours after the blasts, it is the textile town’s history.

Five years ago, a month after 9/11, this predominantly Muslim town saw five days of riots. The toll at the end of it: 13, 12 of them Muslims, most killed in police firing.

Reasons for the riots, which periodically visited this textile town of about 7 lakh people, ranged from an India-Pak cricket match to a pamphlet.

Since three-quarters of the population is Muslim, Friday is when the powerlooms close for the weekly day off and the two lakh-odd workers go for the namaz. Hence, anyone interested in making an impact here waits for Fridays. Most public meetings are held on this day.

No surprise, then, that the town was torn by blasts on a Friday again. The last time the town witnessed communal riots was in October 2001 (on a Friday again) in which 13 were killed. The reason, as revealed by the state minorities commission later, was the desperation of an ageing local politician, Nihal Ahmed Maulavi Mohammed Usman, then 75, state leader of the Janata Dal (Secular).

On October 26, a policeman tried to snatch a pamphlet being distributed by a youth outside the town’s Jama Masjid after the Friday namaz. The pamphlet was an appeal to boycott American and British goods to protest against the US attack on Afghanistan. But when the youth refused to let the policeman see what was on the paper, a scuffle ensued and flared up into a fight between the police and Muslims.

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