There is Much More Than Just ‘Dum Biriyani’ in Bhatkal?

There is Much More Than Just ‘Dum Biriyani’ in Bhatkal?

Mangaluru: During my frequent trips to Madgaon-Goa, once or twice a month, where most of the trains that I board on this route between Mangaluru and Madgaon and vice versa make a halt at Bhatkal- and I have been thinking for a long time of getting down at the Bhatkal Railway Station, and explore this town which has been in the news after police cracked down on terror activities masterminded by a few bad ones in the community there. And finally, during the last weekend, I alighted at the Bhatkal station and toured the town for nearly four hours, before catching my train back to Mangaluru junction.

Frankly speaking, I found out that it isn’t quite the stereotype of a terror neighbourhood. There are no slums, automatic rifle-toting balaclava-clad men and police barricades. Yet, the breathtakingly beautiful town of nearly 1.12 lakh people named after Jain king Bhattakalanka, finds itself being called the nursery of terror in South India. After all, it was once home to India’s most wanted, now arrested Yasin Bhatkal and his early heroes, the dreaded Riaz and Iqbal Bhatkal, widely believed to be in Pakistan. Bhatkal is barely three hours from Goa and about two hours from Mangaluru. One, everyone isn’t a terrorist in Bhatkal, and two, the rest of India finds it difficult to believe so.

It was around 1.30 in the afternoon, and being really hungry my first thing on my list was to find a good restaurant that serves good dum biriyani- and hiring an auto-rickshaw the driver took me to a famous restaurant named Hotel Kwality, which serves the best biriyani in town. Wow, there was a huge crowd waiting to be seated for their turn to have their meals- but my friendly approach to the owner of the restaurant got me a seat inside a private cabin, where only his close relatives and friends get served. I introduced myself as a journo working for Mangalorean.com and he was happy to have me at his restaurant, where he said that hundreds of journalists have visited his restaurant in the past. I tried the Bhatkal biriyani and Mutton Kholapuri and it was simply awesome. And the best part was that my meal was in the house- in spite of me forcing the owner to accept the money for my meal, he wouldn’t take it. With a handshake, thanks a lot- I said and left his hotel with fond memories.

Having satisfied my hunger, I took a stroll down the busy streets, where I found people quite friendly and smiling. Looked like it’s a town hurt, outraged. Barely three hundred metres from where Indian Mujahideen’s mastermind Yasin Bhatkal lived, Mohammed Mir is livid. “Main theen ladkiyo aur ek ladka ka baap hoon, mehnat aur imaan ki khaata hoon. Hum terrorist nahi hain.” (I am the father of three girls and one son who is working hard and honestly to bring them up and get them married. We are not terrorists), says Mohammed, running a busy tea and snacks parlour, who caters to the town’s affluent clients and even the police. He further spoke in Hindi saying, (translated into English),“If I had known that a terrorist lived nearby, wouldn’t I have informed the police who to come here for tea and snacks; and the town’s over lakh population die a thousand deaths every day clarifying that the town is not a nursery of terror.

Bhatkal is a town that defies the terror neighbourhood tag in more than one way. Sprawling across neatly planned neighbourhoods with wide roads, storm water drains emptying into the Arabian Sea, traffic in no hurry, the town has nothing sinister about it. At least on the surface. Ashif, a fruit stall owner said, “99.99% of our people here go to Dubai, Saudi Arabia or other Gulf destinations but only a minuscule like Yasin, Riyaz and Iqbal Bhatkal have gone into a world of terror which has given Bhatkal this tag”. But Bhatkal is just the name of the town, not a surname. It isn’t really clear how the boys who became terrorists were called “Bhatkals” when they had perfect other family names. And with Yasin, Riyaz and Iqbal becoming Bhatkal’s most infamous faces, the town got a terror tag from the surnames of the boys; surnames which they ironically got from the town itself.

Sources reveal that Bhatkal is populated mainly by Navayats or ‘new arrivals’ or ‘boat arrivals’ who arrived from Yemen several centuries ago. History has it that when Ibn Batuta, the famed Moroccan explorer came to neighbouring Honnavar in 12th century AD, he found that Bhatkal alone had over seventeen mosques exclusively for women. A testimony to the areas deep rooted faith in Islam. Hurting even a fly is not a part of Bhatkal’s Islamic tradition. It was around 3 pm- I hired an auto-rickshaw and took a trip around the city, and at Anjuman College, I spent few minutes, where Siddique, a lecturer at the college was kind enough to explain to me more about Bhatkal.

“Most of the Muslims here work in UAE or Saudi Arabia and remit money back home, purchase farms, invest in businesses and charity but these properties are all managed by Hindus. Few volunteers and NGO’s in Bhatkal work 24×7 to clear the town’s terror tag especially to the thousands of its people who have left their wives, sisters and mothers behind in Bhatkal for earning handsomely abroad. Far from home, they are worried about the well-being of their womenfolk. People shouldn’t think that Bhatkal, is the new hub for radical Islam? Islam isn’t radical or moderate. Pure Islam is goodness and that is what Bhatkal’s Muslims are all about. Since 1978, the town has witnessed four riots, the biggest in the aftermath of Babri Masjid demolition” said Siddique.

He further said, “But then that was a Pan Indian phenomenon. Why don’t you call other towns with bigger demolitions terror hubs? But now Bhatkal is facing more than the terror tag. The town is facing a racial profiling, most foul. Bhatkallis have now stopped travelling through Mumbai and Mangaluru Airport and started flying through Goa and even as far as Lucknow and Hyderabad to avoid routine frisking by Immigration and law enforcement officers. Bhatkal as the address or place of birth on one’s passport has become taboo, where even the women are not spared. Interestingly, Riyaz Bhatkal, who first got the town its terror tag, was caught here on the run from Mumbai Police after he hid at his maternal grandmother’s home. Yasin Bhatkal, known to the town simply as Ahmed short for Mohammed Ahmed Zarar Siddibappa has no record of crime even terror-related registered in the local police station”.

“Bhatkallis in general and the Muslim community, in particular, are very tightly knit and hence we could have come to know if there were terror camps and sleeper cells operating in and around Bhatkal. But the terror tag remains. The town is also upset with media playing foul with it. Stories of how a regional daily published that the town’s most influential Masjid was an armoury for terrorists and how another published that Osama Bin Laden had been here had shaken the town’s faith in the media. Sahafat (journalism in Arabic) has been given the highest importance by Allah himself and we believe in it to set the record straight but what does one do when the sahafi (journalist) himself becomes that harbinger of misinformation”, added Siddique referring to scores of media personnel who flock to the town for a sound bite from clueless residents and interpret it as the needs of the media agencies.

Just an hour left before I had to catch my train back to Mangaluru- I requested the auto-driver to show me a few best sightseeing places in Bhatkal, and he obliged to do so. Rushing through the busy main streets, he quickly took me to show places like- Lord Shiva Temple; Shri Chitrapur Math; Bhatkal Light House; Khalifa Masjid; Bhatkal Beach; Kadavinakatta Dam; Noor Masjid; and Khalifa Jamia Masjid. It was indeed a great sight-seeing experience that I had in Bhatkal in less than four hours. For a town famous for Dum Biryani, Bhatkal Biriyani, Gadbad Ice cream, electronic goods and gold market, the terror tag is shaking its’ confidence in civil society itself. The town wants to know why three infamous Bhatkallis – Yasin, Riyaz and Iqbal Bhatkal got the town more bad name than its rich history and tradition of Islam, enterprise and contribution to the economy could not offset.