Nursery of Terrorism

Nickname for Azamgarh, a district in Uttar Pradesh, India, which is the birthplace of a significant number of people arrested for suspected involvement in terrorism.

Reporting for the BBC ahead of India’s elections, Geeta Pandey detailed the sense of suspicion and injustice felt by many in Azamgarh:

“Every time there is a terrorist incident anywhere in the country, people here begin to worry that their names may crop up. That they may get arrested,” says Mohammad Asif, a resident.

Their fear is not unfounded. In the last two years, police have picked up nearly 20 men from Azamgarh, linking them to various militant attacks around the country.

“We are looked upon with suspicion everywhere. We get harassed at the airport and the railway station. They say, ‘Oh you’re from Azamgarh!’ Sometimes they call us a terrorist, to our face,” says Rizwan Ahmad.

In March, Naziya Alvi described in The Hindustan Times the “fear of being branded a terrorist for those born in the nursery of terror”:

Back home, as the list of suspects grew, life changed for an entire generation. Young men who had left home for well-paid jobs in the metros were thrown out by their landlords. Those who were not evicted were called back by families frantic with fear.

In September 2008, shortly after two residents of Azamgarh (suspected of being militants) were shot dead by the Delhi police, The Times of India quoted one local who said:

“Azamgarh is the nursery of terrorism, they claim, but what is the address of this nursery? In the last 65 years I have not come across a single such hatchery.”