Rekchand Agarwal’s journey to hell typically started off in the most routine fashion possible, with a visit to the doctor in Nandurbar’s Kali Masjid area.

Agarwal had stepped out of his house with his uncle, Subhash Agarwal, to attend a puja at a relative’s house. ‘‘After the ceremony, we went to a doctor to get medicines for my uncle. As we waited at the clinic, we suddenly heard people yelling, ho gai, ho gai. People were running helter skelter, shopkeepers were pulling down their shutters.’’ He pauses, then continues: ‘‘We decided to return home. I kickstarted my Bajaj M80 and my uncle hopped on behind me.’’

Rekchand looks blank for several minutes. ‘‘There was total chaos. I wound my way through people running for their lives. Then a mob emerged from a lane, screaming maro maro. They chased us, pelted stones. I sped up the bike and turned towards a Hindu locality, but lost my balance in the process. The bike slipped and both of us fell on the road. We got up and started running. I ran into a safe (Hindu) area, and when I didn’t find my uncle behind me, I assumed he was hiding somewhere.’’ Rekchand learnt the truth about his uncle two hours later: the mob had caught up with him and burnt him alive.

Usual suspect: a madarsa Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly, Narayan Rane, who visited Nandurbar after the riots, alleged that a madarsa at Akkalkuwa, 50 kms here, was the ‘‘hub’’ of communal activities and that Muslims who had fled Gujarat after the riots were being sheltered there. Run by the Jamia Islamia Ish-e-tul Ulum, the madarsa houses a religious school, an ITI centre, a polytechnic, a Unani college and an Urdu high school on a 15-acre plot. Set up in 1980 with 40 students, the madarsa now houses 4,500 students and 200 teachers. Ayub Khan Puri, founder of the institution, told The Indian Express that the students came from all over India, and that the legally recognised institution ran on donations and grants. Rekchand’s cousin, Ajay Agarwal (25), takes off from where he left. ‘‘We went to the police station, asking for an escort to go to Kali Masjid. They rudely told us to leave, saying no policeman could accompany us. We eventually went there with the help of four of my friends.’’

Here, Ajay pauses, like Rekchand. ‘‘In front of Garib Nawaz Saw Mill, we saw a charred body on the road. There were police all around, arresting some youth. We went closer, and saw from the face, the half-burnt clothes, that it was Uncle.’’

Surajmal, the victim’s brother, says the tilak on Subhash’s forehead gave him away. ‘‘Or else, why would they kill him? He had no enmity with anybody.’’

Two deaths, endless

On May 12, some Muslim youth were beaten up by tribal youth over a game of cards. On May 13, communal riots had sliced through Nandurbar, in northern Maharashtra. After the fires were doused and the blood stains dried up, Nandurbar’s residents began counting the losses: two official casualties and an unfathomable divide between Hindus and Muslims. Forty per cent of the city’s one lakh population is Muslim.

The other casualty wasn’t even a victim of hate: railway employee Morsingh Rekhabhai Rathod (54) says his 17-year-old son was killed by police bullets. ‘‘Yogesh was on holiday, he’d just taken the Class XII examination,’’ says the father. ‘‘He stepped out of the house to get grass and leftover vegetables for a goat he had recently purchased. He was hit by a bullet and died on the spot.’’

The police, of course, deny it but Morsingh drives home the ‘‘proof’’ of the cause of death: ‘‘The bullet went through his neck. They could have fired below the waist.’’

To revisit Nandurbar is to see the locks on the doors of hundreds of houses in Kali Masjid. The eponymous mosque, believed to be built during Aurangzeb’s regime, is surrounded by deserted homes. And those left behind—mainly the elderly or the very young—will not speak. Officials won’t put a figure to the number of persons who’ve fled Kali Masjid since the riots.

The only one who will speak is Syed Asghar Ali Syed Mir, a member of the local peace committee. ‘‘I have been living here for the past 70 years. But things are bad this time,’’ he says. ‘‘Never before has a person been burnt alive in Nandurbar. One % is holding 99 % of the population to ransom. .’’

The committee has appealed for peace, he says, but adds that it’s the government that has to instruct the police to punish the guilty.

Neighbours, friends, enemies

Kali Masjid houses about 10,000 Muslims, and is billed as a ‘sensitive area’ in Nandurbar since an equal number of Hindus reside in the neighbouring Maliwada area and must pass through Kali Masjid everyday to get across. But both areas also have something in common: gambling and hooch dens. All of them packed up after the riots. Maliwada, a working class area, itself is divided into two localities: Chhota Maliwada, a slum district and the relatively better off Motha Maliwada.

Riots are an old scourge for residents of Kali Masjid and Maliwada. In 1999, after yet another riot, the Maharashtra government promised to create a police station in the locality. A tent was propped up; then a chowkie created. After a few months, the chowkie was abandoned. In fact, a month after the riots, resentment against the police continues to fester. But District Superintendent of Police, Kachreshwar Rokde, rejects any suggestion that police inaction led to the loss of two lives. Instead, he blamed the riots on “increasing militancy” in both communities.

The Gujarat connection

Though it’s nobody’s case that Gujarat caused the Nandurbar riots, the state has always held sway over Nandurbar, which is a major conduit for the movement of liquor from Madhya Pradesh to the land of prohibition. Little wonder, then, that the tremors of the Gujarat violence were felt this far away. Add to that the police inertia and you have a riot itching to break out.

Violence has been growing in fits and starts in Kali Masjid and Maliwada over the past few years. Seemingly trivial incidents carry the potential of bloody consequences. Thus, when some youth from Maliwada beat up a youth from Kali Masjid over a game of cards on May 12, tension left over from the frenzy of Hanuman Jayanti, which had been celebrated on April 27, breached the peace.

The police filed an FIR against the tribal youth only on May 12. In fact, they were so ill-prepared they didn’t even have helmets to shield themselves from stone-pelting. But that’s the story of the entire police force here: as SP Rokde tells you, though Nandurbar was upgraded to a district headquarter, it still has just one police station and half a dozen chowkies. It’s unspoken tradition that the superintendent of police is transferred before completing a full term. The Excise Department here is no better: it’s manned by a constable who was promoted as an assistant inspector. The office does even have a telephone.