Charity, they say, begins at home. It sure does in Pratappur, an oasis of calm in fear-racked Siwan where the writ of Mohammed Shahabuddin still influences the way of life.

In urban areas, the name of Shahabuddin, whose alleged role in the May 13 murder of journalist Rajdev Ranjan is being probed by police, is uttered in hushed tones, almost reverentially. Pratappur, 10km away, on the other hand is calm and composed. Shahabuddin, after all, calls it home though his parents haven't met him in 12 years.

S.M. Ashibullah, the 83-year-old father of the jailed Siwan don, was resting on a wooden cot in his ancestral home when this reporter met him on Wednesday. His wife Madina Khatoon (70) was engaged in household chores. No gun-toting man was seen around unlike when Shahabuddin stayed in the village.

"Why should I fear? I have done nothing wrong in my life. I have been living in this village since my childhood. Nothing has ever happened either with me or my family," Ashibullah, who passed his intermediate in science from Siwan College way back in 1956, said.

It is not just Shahabuddin's family who are aloof from what goes on in the town. Satyendra Singh (43), a resident of Rajput Tola, has no fear of Shahabuddin's influence affecting their laconic way of life. "There is peace and tranquillity in Pratappur. While Siwan town is burning with anger (after the murder of the journalist), Pratappur is comparatively calm and composed," he said.

Pratappur is not far off from Siwan town, lying 10km southwest of it. However, the road is circuitous and so it takes about half-an-hour to reach the village of about 5,000 people. Most of the residents work abroad, the majority in the Gulf nations.

Apart from the ancestral house of the Siwan strongman, a huge white bungalow, its gates closed, greets visitors at Muslim Tola. The house, known as "Saheb ka bungalow", is built on about 4 acres of land belonging to the family. Shahabuddin used the bungalow as his office when he was not in jail.

In 2001, this white house was raided by a police team headed by then Siwan police chief Bachchu Singh Meena, resulting in a fierce gunbattle in which 12 people, including two policemen, were killed. Since then, the bungalow is locked from outside. The family later built a house in Siwan town.

Ashibullah has not met Shahabuddin ever since his son was arrested and sent to jail in 2004. "Saheb (as Shahabuddin is referred to in Siwan) ne jail mein mulakat karne se mana kar diya tha (Shahabuddin told me not to come and meet him in jail)," he said.

The octogenarian said Shahabuddin (the second of three sons and four daughters) was being falsely implicated in the journalist's murder. "My son is innocent. His rivals are trying to create a situation so that he cannot come out of jail," he said.

The family had planned a big celebration once Shahabuddin is freed. "When my grandson (Shahabuddin's son Osama) met him in jail last time, he told him that he would be released in the next couple of months as bail had been granted in most of the cases. But this seems to be a remote possibility now," Ashibullah said. Shahabuddin was shifted to Bhagalpur jail earlier this month following complaints that he was lording over Siwan from the prison there.

Ashibullah said the development of Siwan had come to a grinding halt since Shahabuddin's defeat in the election. The construction work at the local engineering and medical colleges is going on at snail's pace. Other works have been stalled.

"Had Shahabuddin or his wife been elected as MP, Siwan would have emerged fast on the development map of the country," said the don's father.

The scene in Siwan town, however, presented a different picture altogether. Most of the residents refused to take Shahabuddin's name or say anything against him. "That Shahabuddin is history is a myth. He still has a following in the town and nobody can dare defy his diktat," said a jewellery shop owner at Siwan's JP Chowk, site of the killing of former JNU Students' Union president Chandrashekhar Prasad, allegedly at the don's behest in March 1997.

Rakesh Kumar (45), who is engaged in the real estate business, said many of Shahabuddin's musclemen or shooters still reside in Siwan and take orders from him. "This can be gauged from the fact that nobody dared to take Rajdev Ranjan to hospital when he was fired upon on the crowded Station road on May 13," said Anket, a student and nephew of Rajdev.

A practising doctor of the town, who didn't wish to be named, said that even today if Shahabuddin called anyone, the person had no option but to follow orders. To drive home his point, he said the former MP would hold his 'durbar' twice a week inside the Siwan jail. He used to settle disputes over land, marriages and family issues at the darbar. "The people have more faith in him than in the police or judiciary," he added.

One of the 63 persons detained for interrogation after last week's security check in Siwan jail had told interrogators that they used to visit Saheb before moving the court or reporting to the police. "He has a Robin Hood type of image in rural areas," said a senior administrative officer.

Siwan district magistrate Mahendra Kumar admitted that fear psychosis had gripped the residents of the town after the journalist's killing. "It's true that people are terrorised. But the situation is not as bad as it used to be some 15 years ago. We are here to establish the rule of law. Nobody is above the law and those who defy it are bound to face legal consequences," he told The Telegraph.

Swanky showrooms of branded clothes, cars, mobile phones and small malls have sprung up in the town in the past few years, which people credit to Nitish Kumar's rule and the action against Shahabuddin. But there is a fear that Shahabuddin may be let off and then the reign of terror may return to Siwan, once synonymous with lawlessness in Bihar.

Pratappur has no such worry though. Unlike charity, fear doesn't begin at home.