The terror trail left by two of its residents — Riyaz and Iqbal — might have propelled Bhatkal, a port town in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka, from relative obscurity to the latest hotspot in the country’s terror map, but a strong undercurrent of communal tension has been simmering under the surface for over a decade. Indeed, the origins of the town’s latest tryst with terror are to be found in its local politics, demography and repeated incidents of communal violence during this period. While locals here struggle to come to terms with the new terror tag thrust on them, and are visibly annoyed with the posse of journalists who have started showing up at their doorsteps, Bhatkal’s problems are by no means new.A communally sensitive town, it has witnessed several instances of communal strife in the past that have created a highly polarised population. Clashes between the local Nawayath Muslims and the Bajrang Dal, which enjoys political clout in this coastal belt, have often led to riots, murders and political assassinations. Local minority leaders accept that “a frustration of political ambitions of the Muslim community” and “a wayward and aggressive younger generation” have created a highly charged atmosphere in which reconciliation seems impossible, and innocuous incidents serve as flash points for communal carnage. In 1993, shortly after Mumbai burned in riots and suffered its first serial blasts, Bhatkal was rocked by riots for nine months and communal politics arrived there to stay. According to police records, 17 persons were murdered, 90 injured, 226 houses burnt and 143 shops looted. The riots were sparked off on April Fool’s Day, when a stone was reportedly hurled at a Ram Navami procession.“Ever since the 1993 riots, Bhatkal has always been a very communally sensitive town, and it is a big challenge to police it. There is a sharp divide between the Muslims and the Hindus here, and communally motivated crimes have taken place on several occasions in the past. However, we have managed to establish control in the area, and have ensured that law and order is maintained,” says Superintendent of Police (Uttara Kannada), M B Nanjundappa. There are two police stations in Bhatkal, with a force of 30 police personnel each. Tension was at a high after a sitting BJP MLA, U Chittaranjan, was shot dead by two unknown assailants on April 10, 1996. In a retaliatory attack, two Nawayath Muslim youth were stoned and stabbed to death. Eight years later, while canvassing for the Assembly elections, BJP leader Thimmappa Naik was murdered, leading to another backlash.Recalling another communally charged incident, Sister Ancilla, the headmistress of Anand Ashram Convent School, says, “In December 1999, a skit was staged in the school, and the local Muslims took exception to the depiction of Prophet Mohammed in it. They immediately withdrew 700 Muslim students who were enrolled here. However, most of them were sent back by their parents later.”Over the years, there has been talk of ISI-sponsored communal violence in Bhatkal, though it has been denied by the police and local administration. “Following the 1993 riots, the state Government set up a commission under retired Supreme Court Justice Kedambaddi Jagannath Shetty to probe the violence. Although the report was never tabled in the Assembly, its findings are out in the public domain and were reported in the media. It stated that Bhatkal was a communally sensitive area in which the ISI was covertly operating through its agents, and that Dawood Ibrahim was providing assistance for the same. “In my search for justice, I had met L K Advani in New Delhi in 2004, and had told him that the ISI was active in Bhatkal, and that terror bases were being set up in the coastal strip in areas like Bhatkal, Ullal and Malappuram,” says cardiologist Dr U Rajesh Bhat, son of murdered MLA Chittaranjan.A probe committee’s report on Chittaranjan’s death is yet to be tabled by the Government. The CBI, which investigated the matter sought to close the case till Bhat challenged it in court. Vernacular newspapers in the district have started linking Riyaz Bhatkal to Chittaranjan’s murder, suggesting that he was one of the assailants. “As far as ISI activities in Bhatkal are concerned, we have not received any intelligence inputs to suggest so. Since the Jagannath Shetty report has not been made public, I am not privy to what has been stated in it. The possible existence of a terror network in the region is being investigated, and several police teams from other states are camping in Bhatkal to get leads,” says Nanjundappa.Much of the terror tag is associated with the lineage of the Nawayaths, who trace their roots to the Hadramout region of south Yemen — to which Osama Bin Laden’s ancestry is also linked. The Nawayaths were born out of marriages between Jain or Konkani women with Arab traders who landed on these shores in the 8th century. The community’s links with the Arab world are strong to this day, with a majority of Nawayath men having migrated to the Gulf for employment, leaving behind their wives and children. Heavy flow of money and imported goods from Dubai has also brought the region under the scanner of security agencies. Reports of an official probe lending credence to claims of Pakistan-sponsored terror recruitment have added fuel to the fire by embittering local Muslims, points out D H Shabbar, a Nawayath Muslim leader of the Congress. “We are going through a tough time and the cause of all this is nothing but vote-bank politics that has divided the two communities. We have been targeted time and again. Even if the terrorism claims are true, we are more sinned against than sinned,” says Shabbar emphatically. “Before land reforms, the Muslims were land owners in this area and Hindus were our tenants. By 1919 we had established the Anjuman Hami-e-Muslimeen, our first educational institution. Several others were established in due course and at present, we have 21 colleges and schools with 7,500 students. During British rule, there were no Hindu educational institutions here. After the British left, the land-owning Muslim held political power here. With Hindu schools and colleges being set up, the Hindus also starting having political ambitions and a spirit of competition arose,” he explains.The Sangh Parivar’s ascendancy in the constituency began in 1983 with the defeat of Nawayath leader S M Yahya, who was a Karnataka minister from 1972 to 1982. “This was when the political rift began. The Sangh Parivar, in collusion with the local media, polarised the society and this was manifested in the 1993 riots. Today, the numbers are so highly stacked against us that we cannot hope to turn the tide. This has frustrated the political ambition of the younger generation of Muslims,” says Shabbar. According to elderly Nawayaths like Shabbar, the younger lot have often been ‘wayward’, unemployed and poorly educated owing to the financial success of their fathers in the Gulf.Echoing his sentiments, Kazia Muzammil, president of Bhatkal Tanzeem, says, “We are asking more and more Muslim youth to come forward for posts in different wings of the Government machinery so that they feel that they are stakeholders in the society.”The common Muslim local like Zaqir Hussain, who runs a grocery store on Sultan Street vent their ire at the BJP Government in the state. “The talk of our boys being involved in the blasts is totally false. The police may come and pick up any Muslim man here, and we cannot say anything against it as the Government does not care,” says Hussain. While setting up industries within municipal limits is practically impossible, establishment of projects such as a major pipe factory planned on the outskirts has faced opposition from the Bajrang Dal, which owns a majority of the land there. Everyday opposition by the Bajrang Dal to cows being transported to the town for slaughter by Muslims has also been a major bone of contention.
