Malegaon boy cracks UPSC

Malegaon: Niteen Yeola, the first candidate from the Wani (trader) community from Malegaon passed the Civil Service Exams 2010, secruing the 106th position in his second attempt. Son of a school teacher, Niteen is an additional commissioner of income tax (probationary) and posted in Nagpur.

Niteen, who topped the UPSC in Maharashtra, did his engineering in electronics and telecommunication from the College of Engineering, Pune in 2005 batch. Niteen said he was keen to join the Indian Foreign Service (IFS).

ATS knew of Purohit’s role in Hyd blast

Lt. Col Prasad Purohit is the first army officer to be arrested in a bomb blast case


Mateen Hafeez I TNN

Mumbai: Investigations into the 2007 blast in Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid are now pointing to the involvement of r i g h t - w i n g Hindu outfits. However, Mah a r a s h t r a anti-terrorism squad (ATS) had in November 2008 discovered the link between Lt Col. Prasad Purohit, an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast, and the explosion in Hyderabad. The ATS officials were instructed to not make it public as the suspects belonging to the Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami (HuJI) were already in jail for the Hyderabad blast, said senior police officials. The investigating agencies then believed that the same group was behind the Ajmer blast as well.

Purohit, during his interrogation, had told the ATS sleuths that he had provided the RDX used in the Mecca Masjid blast. A member of right-wing Hindu outfit Abhinav Bharat, Purohit is believed to have played a key role in the Ajmer blast as well. The Rajasthan ATS recently arrested two persons in connection with the 2007 Ajmer shrine blast that killed three and injured 30.

The Rajasthan ATS is probing the links between the arrested suspects—Devendra Gupta and Chandra Shekhar—and Abhinav Bharat members held in connection with the 2008 Malegaon blast. Gupta is said to be a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

The 350-year-old Mecca mosque was built by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. A blast triggered through a mobile phone killed 12 persons on May 18, 2007. “The Maharashtra ATS had told the Hyderabad police about Purohit’s suspected involvement in the blast, but the Hyderabad police did not show interest in seeking Purohit’s custody,’’ said an officer who was part of Maharashtra ATS team that probed the Malegaon blast case. “We had also recovered RDX from Purohit’s Pune home. It was then that Purohit admitted to keeping RDX at his place,’’ the officer added.

It has now emerged that slain RSS member Sunil Joshi, who is also said to be Malegaon blast accused Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur’s boyfriend, had introduced Gupta to Thakur. The sadhvi, currently in a Nashik jail, had floated Jai Vande Matram Kalyani Samiti in 2007.

Soon after the Mecca Masjid blast, the Hyderabad police had arrested four Muslim boys, including an MBA. All the four were acquitted by a Hyderabad court. The Maharashtra ATS had submitted a CD in the court which allegedly showed Purohit saying that his group had executed two more operations in the country. Sleuths believe that Purohit was referring to the blasts in Ajmer and Hyderabad.


The Times of India, May 6, 2010

MALEGAON BLAST CASE - Maha ATS team to grill Ajmer blast suspects

Mateen Hafeez | TNN

Mumbai: A Maharashtra ATS team has left for Rajasthan to interrogate the three right-wing suspects caught for their alleged role in the 2007 Ajmer shrine blast. The ATS is probing the links between the arrested trio—Devendra Gupta, Chandra Shekhar and Vishnu Prasad—and Abhinav Bharat members held in connection with the 2008 Malegaon blast. Gupta is said to be a RSS member.

According to the Rajasthan ATS, the trio used a mobile phone to trigger a bomb at the 800-year-old shrine in Ajmer on October 11, 2007. Initially, the Ajmer police had claimed that Bangladesh’s banned outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami (HuJI) was behind the blast.

Maharashtra textile and minority affairs minister Arif Naseem Khan said, “I have spoken to the ATS chief Rakesh

Maria and he is sending his teams to question the suspects in Ajmer. The suspects could have links with Abhinav Bharat members, 11 of whom are lodged in our jails.’’ Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt Col Prasad Purohit are among those arrested for their alleged roles in the Malegaon blast.

The Maharashtra ATS had submitted a video CD in which Lt Col Prasad Purohit can allegedly be seen saying that his group had executed two more operations in the country. Sleuths believe that Purohit was referring to the blasts in Ajmer shrine and Hyderabad’s Mecca mosque. “The Hyderabad police had announced the name of HuJI man as a suspect in the Mecca mosque blast. It was for this reason that other security agencies kept quiet on Purohit’s role in the Hyderabad blast,’’ said a source in the ATS.

The Times of India, May 3, 2010

Malegaon’s beacons of change

CHEERS OF HOPE: The women at work

Malathy Iyer | TNN

Malegaon: Fatima is a tenth-pass divorcee who speaks in soft tones, recites shayari and covers herself from head to toe in a black flowing burkha. One would hardly view her as a messenger of change. But the 22-year-old along with 12 others — is changing the way mothers-to-be and newborns are treated in 36 slums in this communally sensitive town near Nashik.

As a part of Bill & Melinda Gates-sponsored project called Swasthya-Sure Start, she is part of a band of Muslim girls who knock on every door in 36 villages to conduct a menstrual surveillance, an innovative adaptation of the time-tested public health tool of door-to-door surveillance of infectious diseases. “When we find out a woman has missed her period and could be pregnant, we start educating both her and her mother-in-law on the care they need to take during each trimester,” says Fatima’s colleague Ayesha. In the next nine months, the girl-counsellors guide the mother-to-be about pills, clinic visits and the need to register in advance at a public hospital. The results are heartening. Registrations of pregnancies before 12 weeks rose from 38% in 2008 in these 36 villages to 61% in 2009. “While 48% women delivered in hospitals in 2008, the figure was 57.2% for 2009,” says Dr Kranti Ramayane of PATH, the international NGO implementing Swasthya-Sure Start along with the Malegaon Municipal Corporation. Dr H Shaikh, acting health officer of MMC, endorses this: “The project has given us the manpower to detect high-risk pregnancies.”

But this microscopic change in Golden Nagar, an area comprising a largely poor migrant population, has not been easy. The girls were initially shooed away. Says Kismet, a community health worker, “When we first started about three years back, elders in houses would shoo us away saying it was not becoming of young girls to talk about such stuff.” But persistent visits and results —healthier babies — paid off. “Now mothers-to-be go to civic hospitals demanding tetanus shots as well as checks on their blood pressure,” says project coordinator Arun G. It has found another unlikely role as a family planning advisor. Says Ayesha, “When we go for home visits, the women always ask for condoms as they want to space their children.

Incidentally, when the Centre launched the National Rural Health Mission three years back, there was criticism that the urban poor had been left out. “When PATH approached the Maharashtra government for the project, we were pleasantly surprised when told the government would prefer if we looked at the urban poor instead of the rural poor,” says Benazir Patil, state head of PATH. “The Malegaon project is the most special as the town has a tremendous gender bias,” Patil adds. The aim of the project is to provide a prototype for the National Urban Health Mission, which will be launched in 2012.

Says Dr Anant Phadke of NGO Cehat-Pune, “While the Janini Swasthya Yojana only give incentives to mothers (Rs 600 to women who deliver in hospitals), such community-centric schemes manage to change their mindset.” There is concern about what will happen when the project winds up in 18 months. Slum communities have already elected ‘leaders’ and ‘supporters’ to take the message ahead and are also toying with the idea of setting up a motherand-child fund.

The Times of India, April 7, 2010

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Malegaon Fort

The Malegaon Fort, situated on the bank of Mausam river, was constructed during the reign of Maratha king Narav Shankar in 1765 AD. The British army attacked on the fort in 1818 AD. However, they British army found it difficult to conquer the fort for a few weeks since it was guarded by highly trained 310 Arab warriors. The rest 40 guards were Indian Muslims. On June 14, 1818 AD the British army conquered the 77 ft tall fort. One the West the fort has the river, while the it has trench on its East, North and South.

Mughals ruled Malegaon upto 1636 AD, Nizam Shahi upto 1724 AD and the Marathas had taken over the fort by 1760 AD. The fort has a shrine on its top and a temple on the ground.

One of the country's heritage structures, the fort is in a dilapidated state. While a slum has come up within the fort premises, a state government sanctioned school is being run here too.

Education at a glance

This is the Malegaon High school and junior college building, located in the sprawling compound of the 50-year-old school. The school has over 7,000 students (pre primary to high school section). A photograph by Asif Ansari


In 1880, Britishers started the first school in Malegaon known as Anglo Vernacular school. Three years later, a Christian missionary school was also started. In the year 1900, a municipal solitary school was started by the government. In 1903, the civic body started the first Urdu and Marathi school for girls. In 1907, the first Urdu private school, Anjuman Hidayat-e-Islam, started. In 1927, Anglo Urdu High school, first Urdu high school, was started. In 1930, an organisation, Anjuman Moinuttulaba, was founded to prevent and control the school drop-outs.

Malegaon Municipal Corporation run schools:
There are 58 Urdu primary schools with a strength of 25,881 students while the Marathi primary schools have 3,824 students.

Private schools:
Urdu Medium:
Urdu primary schools run by private institution cross the figure of 36 with 35,000 students. In 30 private high schools, 24,000 students are studying. The number of junior colleges being run by Urdu institution is around five with 2,500.
(Around 89,000 students are studying in pre-primary to junior college level Urdu medium institution)


Marathi Medium:
There are 13 private Marathi primary schools with 10,000 students while in 15 Marathi high schools 18,000 students are studying. A total of seven junior colleges are being run by Marathi and English medium institutions with 2,321 students.
(Around 33,606 students are studying in pre-primary to junior college level Marathi medium institution)


English Medium:
There are total seven primary schools that teach around 3,000 students. In two English medium high schools around 1,031 students are studying.
(Around 4,124 students are studying in pre-primary to junior college level English medium institution)

Well-known Urdu High schools and colleges:
* A T T High school and Junior college: Founded in 1954
* The Malegaon High school and Junior college was started in 1956
* J A T Girls' High school was first started in 1962
* Jamhoor High school and Junior college was founded in 1963
* Tehzeeb High School and Junior college was founded in 1969
* Shaikh Usman High school and Junior college was started in 1978
* Jaamiat-ul-Huda was started in 1979
* Swess High school was started in 1989