The mosque opposite Nadeem Akhtar’s house in Deora Bandoli village in Darbhanga. Picture by Jitendra Kumar Shrivastava

Deora Bandoli (Darbhanga), Jan. 24: The hamlet described as having nurtured the “Darbhanga module” of Indian Mujahideen terrorists is cut off from its immediate neighbourhood but has strong links to the world beyond Bihar.

Located barely 35km from the border with Nepal, Deora Bandoli has suddenly come into the limelight following the arrest of two youths hailing from the village who, according to the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), were involved in the Mumbai explosions of July 13 last year in which over a dozen people died.

The ATS says Naqi Ahmed Sheikh alias Waqi (22) and Nadeem Akhtar (23) stole the two-wheelers used to set off the explosions at two places in Mumbai, though the Delhi police have challenged the “breakthrough” saying one of those arrested was their informer.

The Union home ministry today acknowledged that Naqi was indeed an informer of the Delhi police, but hailed the ATS for cracking the case. (See Page 4)

Residents of Deora Bandoli are furious at what they say is the “high-handedness” of the ATS. “How can the police (ATS) even think of suspecting my innocent son to be a terrorist? He is only 23 and is a student at a Mumbai college. These Mumbai policemen should be prosecuted for ruining young lives,” said Ashfaq Akhtar (60), Nadeem’s father.

Wasi Ahmad, Naqi’s father, remarked: “Mumbai police ke aankh par parda pada hai (Mumbai police have got blinkers on their eyes). They have caught my son too.”

The villagers feel they are persecuted against because of their religion — at least 4,000 of the 6,000 people residing at Deora Bandoli are Muslims. “What happened in the Malegaon and Mecca Masjid blasts? The court has acquitted the people kept behind bars by the police for over five years. The police have turned partisan targeting only the Muslims,” said Shakeel Ahmad Safi. Another villager, Zahangir, recalled how the ATS team members, numbering eight, removed the cap of a villager who sported a flowing beard and clicked his pictures. “We were shocked to see the ATS members spotting Nadir Hussein with his beard and snapping his picture as if keeping a beard is a sin,” he said.

Deora Badoli, about 60km from Darbhanga town and 160km north of Patna, and its residents appear completely cut off from their surrounding villages — socially, culturally and even recreationally. The village is virtually inaccessible with only the Jale-Garri- Deobandoli pathway — a muddy, dusty and broken stretch — connecting it.

Its residents keep to themselves. Most of their children study in the village Hakkania madarsa. Most of their women stay behind veil and behind the four walls. The Telegraph did not find a single woman coming out to speak on the issue. “It is better if the women stay behind veil,” said Wasi when asked if his son’s mother and sisters had to say anything. The men usually gather at the magnificent mosque that has come up near a palatial building in the middle of the village. Deora Bandoli has its post office at the nearby Rajput-dominated Jogiara village. “But they come to collect only letters. They don’t interact with us and vice-versa. They live their own life and we our own,” said an elderly man at Jogiara playing cards with co-villagers.

But Deora Bandoli has strong links with the world outside — many of its sons have gone to Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, even Dubai, to eke out a living. “Most of our boys go to the Middle East or Mumbai or Delhi to study or to earn their living. We are living on the business outside Bihar for three generations,” admitted Ashfaq who was working at an oil mill in Mumbai before returning to his village after retirement. According to a rough estimate, the village has over 200 people working away, including in the Middle East.

The villagers are poor in terms of agricultural holdings and yield in the flood-ravaged terrain stuck in the middle of Mithila’s Adhwara group of rivers. But most of the villagers have pucca houses. They are proud that the village boys had at least 30 motorcycles with Mumbai registration numbers. “They earn in Arabia and Mumbai and prefer to buy their things in Mumbai,” said a youth, adding: “The two bikes seized from the houses of Nadeem and Naqi can’t prove anything.”

The segregation of the villagers, particularly the youths, looked more glaring at the madarsa where the maulvi (teacher) was teaching Hamari Kitab, a book series published by the Marquaz-i- Makhtab. “Quran Sharief sale Allah Ali wa Salam Mohammad par nazir hua. Yeh paq kitab hai.. baaqi sab jail hogaye (Allah revealed Quran to Mohammad. So, it is the only holy book. Others scriptures got mixed with fallacies over the years).”

Police officials, who spoke under cover of anonymity, said terror outfits find it easy to operate in such close societies. “The youths learn only one way of looking at a thing. The terror masterminds pick them up selectively and indoctrinate them,” said an IG-rank official.

Officials at the Jale police station, under whose jurisdiction the village falls, confirmed that the alleged blast mastermind Yasin Bhatkal stayed in Darbhanga and visited seminaries of Deora Bandoli and other such villages dotted along the India-Nepal border at Darbhanga, Madhubani and Muzaffarpur districts. “He at times worked as a teacher, counsellor or even healer in different names,” said a deputy superintendent of police.