The turnout at Malegaon’s Idgah Maidan for Id prayers on Thursday. Telegraph picture

Malegaon, Oct. 2: Mufti Mohammed Ismail took in the 1.25 lakh Muslims gathered before him, warned the Centre against injustices to the community, then broke down in tears.

The mood had suddenly turned tense at blast-scarred Malegaon’s Idgah Maidan, where one of the largest crowds in the communally sensitive town’s recent history had assembled for Id prayers.

“Jo qaum aapko takht--taj de sakti hain, wohi aapka janaza bhi nikal sakti hain (the community that brought you to power can also take out your funeral procession),” Ismail warned the UPA government as faces among the security forces turned anxious.

“Muslims die in the blasts, yet suspicion points at them. Educated Muslims are being arrested. The government should prove the charges against those arrested from Malegaon for the September 2006 blasts or release them,” the Mufti said.

The sight of his tears had many eyes welling up, with several people in the audience agreeing that Ismail’s words correctly reflected the Muslim anger in the town, where Monday’s blast had killed five persons.

As police and the Rapid Action Force watched in alarm, Ismail quickly regained his composure and urged the youth to walk the “good path shown by the humanist approach of Islam”.

He appealed to people to co-operate with the police and share any information they had about the blast with the community organisation he heads, the Jamait-e-Ulema.

Except for this brief, tense moment, the Id celebrations were peaceful. Although the Idgah is in a Hindu-dominated area, everything passed peacefully much to the relief of the police, who had faced mob wrath minutes after the blast.

“The Mufti expressed exactly what an ordinary Muslim in Malegaon feels,” said Ehsan Ansari, who works with an Islamic bank that provides interest-free loans to Muslims.

“More people turned up at the Idgah this year because of the blast. Eighty per cent wore new clothes after the Mufti appealed to people last night to wear new clothes and celebrate Id in keeping with Islamic tradition,” Ansari said.

Most of those at the Idgah, including small children, wore black ribbons pinned to their shirt pockets or sleeves.

Shivraj Patil and R.R. Patil, the Union and state home ministers, are the prime target of the people’s anger. “I think Muslims were better off under the BJP government. Under the two Patils we have suffered the most,” said Syed Asif Ali.

When R.R. Patil visited a hospital here on Tuesday morning, Ali had shouted to the minister’s face: “How long must Muslims wait for justice in Shivraj Patil’s India and R.R. Patil’s Maharashtra?”

One sore point is that the six residents arrested after the September 2006 Malegaon blasts that killed 31 are still in jail, waiting for the trial to start.

Another is that the Congress-NCP government has not made public the report of the N.K. Patil Commission, which probed the October 2001 communal riots here when 13 people died in police firing.

Malegaon feels that state and central governments have denied justice to Muslims whenever they have been victims of violence, such as during the 2002 Gujarat killings or the 1993 Mumbai riots.

Muslims here feel the government has raised the blast compensation to Rs 8 lakh, from the Rs 1 lakh it handed out in 2006, only because a general election is due next year.

District collector S. Chokhalingam said Rs 60 lakh had been distributed as compensation till last evening.

“We gave cheques for Rs 5 lakh to the family of each of the four dead. The fifth victim died only yesterday. This money came from the state treasury,” Chokhalingam said.

“The compensation from the Centre (Rs 3 lakh for each family) will be available a little later. We also paid the cheques (for Rs 50,000 each) to the injured at the hospital. We will continue the process tomorrow.”

The police have made little progress apart from detaining four persons for questioning. The forensic report on the explosives is yet to arrive, an officer said.

Late this evening, the police announced a reward of Rs 50,000 for anyone providing information on the terrorists behind the blast.