Teachers at Jauhar Academy in Dhurwa, run by HEC Employees Millat Samiti, can’t believe that the first one to be arrested for Sunday’s blast is an alumnus. Ansari, school records revealed, had scored 57% in matric. (Prashant Mitra)

Ranchi, Oct. 30: So far, the only claims to fame of this nondescript Hindi-medium school in Dhurwa on capital fringes were nearby historic Jagannath Temple and spanking-new JSCA international stadium. Now, Jauhar Academy is earning the kind of notoriety it never wanted as terror suspect Md Imtiyaz Ansari’s alma mater.

A day after a friend-cum-ideologue of Gandhi Maidan bomber Ansari was arrested from Ranchi, Jauhar Academy principal in-charge today said they were stunned to know they had an alleged Indian Mujahideen (IM) operative as alumnus.

Ansari passed his matriculation in 1998 from this school in undivided Bihar. A school clerk showed The Telegraph a register that recorded Ansari’s date of birth as December 17, 1983. He will turn 30 this year.

In his school final, he had secured 286 out of 500, getting 57.2 per cent or “high second-division” marks.

“Humlog sadme mein hai. Ustad ruhani maa-baap hote hain (We are in shock because teachers are spiritual parents),” principal in-charge Firoza Akhtari told The Telegraph this afternoon.

Adding that no teacher wanted students to take the wrong path, she said: “Pata nahin iske saath kya hua (don’t know what happened to him).”

The lady raised a fundamental question.

It is difficult to say why an average student from a middle class semi-rural area becomes a terrorist bomber.

Teachers who actually taught Ansari in class are now serving schools in Bihar. Akhtari, who joined the school in the late 1990s, added Ansari had a “clean record” in school. “We have no record about his misbehaviour,” she said.

Present-day teachers are angry over how Ansari being an alumnus would damage the school’s genteel social standing. Computer teacher Soma Sarkar nailed the feeling accurately. “We are demoralised that the name of our school is now associated with a suspected terrorist. We work hard to educate students from modest backgrounds and bring him into the social mainstream,” she said.

Established in 1981, co-educational Jauhar Academy, affiliated to Jharkhand Academic Council, is run by HEC Employees Millat Samiti on a five-acre plot. The single-storey building with 17 rooms has 20 teachers who impart education to 350 students from different communities, mostly from lower-middle class homes. Each student pays between Rs 50 and Rs 100. Teachers are paid a monthly honorarium ranging from Rs 1,200 to Rs 2,300.

“We teach children to be good citizens of the country. This was never expected. Our school has alumni in the form of Indian Army soldiers, doctors and bureaucrats,” said physical training teacher Baby Shahin.

The teacher reeled off names of achiever alumni to bleach the stain of having an alleged terrorist as a former student.

“This school has taught Anisha Ullah Anjau, who’s now a doctor in Samastipur. Kaushar Khan and brothers Taiyab and Aaiyab are in the Indian Army. Reena and Meena, two daughters of the school’s maid, hold reputable government jobs,” she said.

BIG FISH IN NET

Uzair Ahmed Khan in Ranchi on Wednesday. (Prashant Mitra)

National Investigation Agency (NIA) and state police officers unravelled yet another
Ranchi link to Sunday’s Patna blasts when they produced a senior Indian Mujahideen recruiter in the court of chief judicial magistrate on Wednesday. Uzair Ahmed Khan, wanted for his alleged role in several terror attacks across the country including last year’s serial blasts at Delhi High Court, was arrested from Ranchi’s Doranda area on Tuesday night.
“He was arrested in connection with the Patna serial blast case,” Jharkhand DGP Rajeev Kumar said, but NIA officials agreed he was a big fish

The probe so far…

ACCUSED NAMED IN FIR

Kingpin: IM operative Tahseen Akhtar, alias Monu (Samastipur, Bihar)
Md Imtiyaz Ansari (Sithio, Ranchi)
Tarique, alias Enul, is Imtiyaz’s nephew (Sithio, Ranchi)
Taufiq Alam (Sithio, Ranchi)
Nauman (Sithio, Ranchi)
Haider (Aurangabad, Bihar)

Patna SSP Manu Maharaj has clarified that none of the suspects named in the FIR is a minor. His information is based on disclosures purportedly made by Imtiyaz. Jharkhand police, which initially claimed that Imtiyaz’s accomplices from Sithio, were minors, now tend to agree with the Patna SSP as the case has been registered there

ARRESTS

Imtiyaz Ansari: Arrested from Patna Junction
Tarique, alias Enul
Tabish, alias Ansari: a Ranchi University graduate, picked up from Aluala village in East Champaran, Bihar
Uzair Ahmed: picked up from Manitola, Doranda, Ranchi

RANCHI CONNECT

Probe points to the hand of fledgling Indian Mujahideen (IM) module in Ranchi. Uzair has a home in Ranchi. Haider, who has been visiting Ranchi since 2011, allegedly recruited fresh faces for the IM. Alleged IM recruits Ansari, Tarique, Taufiq and Nauman, who planted bombs, are from Sithio village, Ranchi district, 20km from the capital. The Ranchi IM module might have been behind the Bodh Gaya terror attack on July 7, with identical explosives and digital timer

INVESTIGATION

Uzair, who used to provide shelter to IM operatives of Bihar and Jharkhand, is an accused in a Delhi blast case (RC06/12). He has been taken to Delhi on 3-day transit remand.
Two separate teams of NIA conducted raids in Muzaffarpur and Samastipur districts on Wednesday on the basis of information provided by Tabish, who has been brought to Patna for interrogation

“He is an important catch and his interrogation would provide vital clues about the serial blasts,” said Patna SSP Manu Maharaj

THE PLOT

Tahseen, alias Monu, a close aide of Yasin Bhatkal, who is in Delhi police custody, hatched the conspiracy. He formed the group about two months ago. Tahseen took command of Bihar and Jharkhand modules after Bhatkal’s arrest from Raxaul in East Champaran district on August 29

The MOTIVE

To create panic and cause a stampede at Gandhi Maidan, the venue of the BJP’s Hunkar Rally, to avenge Muzaffarnagar riots of September that killed over 40, according
to SSP Maharaj