Ajmer: Haji Mohammad Sharif Abbasi, the vice-president of the Madrasa Committee, has found a new and urgent mission—to impart ‘good touch, bad touch’ training to children and staff of the mosque adjacent to Kele Shah Dargah near the city’s railway station. The 50-year-old will take his campaign to all the madrasas and mosques of Ajmer.
It’s just been a fortnight since six madrasa students aged between 9 and 16 bludgeoned their imam Mohammed Mahir to death for alleged sexual assault.
“We need to ensure the students’ safety in madrasas. We should conduct checks on every imam and maulana,” said Abbasi while speaking to officials of the Muhammadi Masjid where the murder took place.
The incident has shaken Ajmer. And has increased the demand for security of the city’s madrasas and mosques, including mandatory registration of these institutions by the Muslim community. Muslims are worried about furthering an already negative image of madrasas and mosques. Some madrasa officials are also concerned that the incident may lead to a rise in students dropping out. Amid this fear, the murder case itself has come under intense scrutiny with many questioning the police investigation.
We need to ensure the students’ safety in madrasas. We should conduct checks on every imam and maulana
– Haji Mohammad Sharif Abbasi, vice-president, Madrasa Committee
For preliminary investigation, it was a team of 70 people who were put on the job of cracking the murder, including the dog squad, forensics team and the Modus Operandi Bureau (MOB) team that’s responsible for remapping the crime. Since 8 May, it’s a group of 40 people investigating the maulana’s murder.
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The murder plan
Mahir took over the responsibility of the mosque in October 2023. He soon brought four children from Rampur in Uttar Pradesh to stay and study at the mosque. A minor boy from Rajasthan also came under maulana Mahir’s guidance.
Abbasi said Mahir had anger issues, and often beat the children. Because he was a Maulana, no action was taken against him. However, he said that the students never made any complaints against Mahir.
“Mahir was advised against beating students by the neighbours. However, due to the respect and reverence for the maulana, no strict action was ever taken,” said Abbasi.
On 25 April, after ramzan, another minor student, aged 16, from Rampur came to live at the mosque. Like all other children, the new student was also made to share the ground floor room with maulana Mahir.
SHO Ravindra Singh of Ramganj police station said Mahir woke up the new student from sleep at 10pm and asked him to do “wrong things” in the bathroom. The teenager refused. Mahir retracted.
At 8:30am, on 26 April, Mahir again asked this new student to accompany him to the bathroom. He again refused to oblige.
A few hours later, while playing carrom in a room located on the roof of the mosque, the new student shared his ordeal with the other five children. According to the police, this is when the others too came out with their ordeals — of maulana’s sexual assaults.
“The children planned to kill the maulana,” Singh said. They went about the plan in a meticulous way. “They decided to kill him by lacing his food with rat poison, but they doubted if that would be enough.”
Revisiting their plan, they bought sleeping pills from a local medical store. Their plan nearly got derailed after the maulana decided to eat dinner outside. But the children didn’t give up. When the maulana returned, the students served him raita laced with sleeping pills. He felt uneasy and fell asleep.
At around 2:30 am on the night of 27 April, while the Maulana was still asleep, the children went to the mosque storeroom and returned with a thick sticks. They first hit him with the sticks and when he tried to get up, they wrapped a rope — made out of a net — around his neck before strangling him. They didn’t leave immediately after the murder, waiting in the room to ensure he was dead. Around 2:50 am, the children, crying, woke up a neighbour, who often helps with the masjid’s work. Upon arrival, he found the maulana covered in blood. The man tried to give CPR, but maulana was dead.
The children had also planned their defence, concocting a story that would take the blame away from them. They said that three masked assailants entered the masjid using the backdoor and beat the maulana to death with sticks. The attackers first threatened the children and forced them out of the room, before carrying out the murder. The children reported that the miscreants were wearing black clothes and had covered their faces with black cloth. The killers left the sticks used in the murder at the crime scene before fleeing.
The police, on the morning of the murder, recovered two sticks used in the killing and a net that was used to strangle the maulana.
With maulana no more, and no one to take care of them at the masjid, the children were taken back to Rampur by their family members on 30 April.
Mahir was advised against beating students by the neighbours. However, due to the respect and reverence for the maulana, no strict action was ever taken
– Haji Mohammad Sharif Abbasi, vice-president, Madrasa Committee
According to SHO Singh, the police investigated the case from all possible angles for 15 days but couldn’t find a lead on the killer(s).
On 8 May, SP Devendra Kumar Bishnoi called a review meeting and suggested that the children be questioned again. On 11 May, the children were brought back to Ajmer from Rampur. During questioning and counseling that lasted for nearly 24 hours, they confessed their crime.
On 12 May, between 3:00 and 3:30 pm, the police brought the children to the madrasa to retrace the crime. During the visit, the cops also found maulana’s phone that was untraceable since his murder. The phone was recovered from a pile of junk in the masjid gallery. According to the SHO, the maulana used to watch obscene videos on his phone.
A case has been registered under IPC sections 147 (guilty of rioting), 149 (unlawful assembly guilty of offense committed in prosecution of common object), 302 (snatching), and 201 (Causing disappearance of evidence of offense, or giving false information). IPC 147 is invoked when five or more accused are involved in a murder case, said Singh.
Apart from the mobile phone, the police on the morning of the murder recovered two sticks used in the killing and the net that was used to strangle the maulana.
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A rehearsed story
When an attacker comes with the intent to kill, they bring a sharp weapon. They don’t come with sticks. This, and many other smaller details, the police said, went against the murder story the children had concocted.
The children’s “rehearsed story” deepened the police’s suspicion.
“Children’s statements were exactly the same. They seemed completely rehearsed. How could everyone’s statements be the same? This raised our suspicion,” Singh told ThePrint.
In their testimony, the children told the police that the three masked attackers were wearing black clothes, masks, and gloves. The police grew suspicious of this coincidence. The fact that the killers would leave the murder weapon behind also went unexplained.
In an attempt to explain away the presence of their fingerprints on the murder weapon, the students said they moved the sticks after the ‘attack’. The children had placed the sticks on an 8-foot-high wall in the mosque gallery, from where it fell into an adjacent empty plot.
The children said the attackers escaped by jumping into the empty plot through the 8-foot-high gallery wall. Singh claimed that the Modus Operandi Bureau (MOB) is “100 percent sure” that no one escaped from that route because jumping from such a high wall would have left footprints or some mark on the ground, which the team never found. Additionally, police reviewed over 100 CCTV footage from the surrounding areas, but they did not find anything suspicious.
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Sleeping pills
How a bunch of teenagers were able to source sleeping pills from a medical store is a key question in the case. It’s something even the police have got no answers to as yet and are investigating. Topping that is the perception that children are too innocent to commit a crime as heinous as murder.
Mahir’s brother, Mohammed Aamir, has accused the police of falsely claiming that the real culprits were being shielded while trying to frame innocent people. And the madrassa students, the police are accusing now, are too young to have committed the crime.
“The post-mortem report revealed that Mahir’s neck bone was broken and he sustained severe blows. No child can inflict such powerful attacks,” claimed Aamir.
According to him, the police claim that the students gave Mahir sleeping pills has not been confirmed in the post-mortem report.
Aamir also alleged that on 10 May, the police took their father and uncle along with the five madrassa students for questioning. However, instead of taking them to the police station, the cops took them to the Gupta Hotel in Ajmer. There, his father and uncle were kept in one room, while the children were kept in another. During this time, Amir alleged, the police tortured the children and coerced them into confessing Mahir’s murder.
Children’s statements were exactly the same. They seemed completely rehearsed. How could everyone’s statements be the same? This raised our suspicion
– SP Devendra Kumar Bishnoi
However, SHO Singh said that Amir’s allegations were “incorrect” and “baseless.” He said there is only one deep wound on maulana Mahir’s head. Whether sleeping pills were given or not will be determined by the forensic report, which will come out after a month. The SHO stated that the children were taken to the hotel as per the law. “Children cannot be taken to the police station. That’s why we took them to a private hotel,” added Singh.
A close aide of maulana Mahir who stayed at the mosque for eight years too came out in defence of Mahir.
“I often spent time with maulana Mahir and these students. But never found any suspicious behavior of maulana. Mahir always talked about focusing on studies. I never saw or felt he could do anything wrong with me and others,” he told ThePrint on condition of anonymity.
Local media and its Drishyam lens
For the city’s public and police, the case is sensitive. While the police view it as a “thriller mystery”, for the local media, it’s a “spicy news” story. Right outside the Muhammadi Mosque where the murder took place, some young people took out their phones to get updates on the case.
“The children were inspired by the movie Drishyam to kill the maulana. This news just came out. Look at this,” said a young man, clicking on a news report link from a local newspaper.
The reporter’s voiceover uses a famous dialogue from the Ajay Devgn starrer thriller before updating on the maulana’s murder. “On 2 October, we went to Panaji and had pav bhaji at a restaurant. How can anyone forget this scene from the movie Drishyam? How a family creates a false story to protect themselves. Similarly, the six minors who killed maulana Mahir fabricated a fake story,” said the reporter in Hindi.
On the local channel Capital TV‘s show Pardafash, it was said that reports of children being mistreated frequently come out of most madrasas.
“Such cases from many states in the country often become a topic of discussion due to the misdeeds of the clerics. Their heinous acts also come to light, and once known, strict action is taken against them,” added the Capital TV anchor Divya Singh.
I often spent time with maulana Mahir and these students. But never found any suspicious behavior of maulana. Mahir always talked about focusing on studies. I never saw or felt he could do anything wrong with me and others
– close aide of maulana Mahir
But some news reports have angered the residents of Ajmer. Abbasi said “the media is exaggerating and sensationalising this case. Some have used it to spread communalism and defame the community.”
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Madrasas and the safety question
In the serene outskirts of Ajmer, surrounded by mountains, the Darul Uloom Sufi Shahbaz Madrasa broke for lunch at one o’clock. Children, carrying their books and other materials, proceed towards their homes. Over 70 students attend school here, some hailing from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, and Bengal.
Outside the madrasa building, three teachers sit together discussing the impact of the recent incident on other madrasas. They see the need to tighten oversight on the city’s madrasas. Mohammad Ramzan objects to the lack of registration of private madrasas.
“The image of madrasas and mosques is already being tarnished, and such incidents are akin to adding fuel to the fire. Therefore, verification of all imams and madrasas in the city should be done,” said Ramzan.
He stressed on the need for strict monitoring of madrasas. The 33-year-old advocated for installation of cameras at every religious institution.
“Cameras should be installed in every madrasa and mosque so that children can be continuously monitored. There are a considerable number of private and unregistered madrasas here. Due to this, there is no one to keep an eye on them,” he added.
They hold the lack of coordination between the guardians and the maulana responsible for such incidents.
“Parents leave their children in madrasas and then do not come to inquire about their well-being for many months. Before doing so, parents should check the madrasas and the maulana,” added Ramzan.
According to the Rajasthan Madarsa Board, there are 3,454 registered madrasas in the state with over 204,612 students receiving both modern and religious education.
Another teacher, Mohammad Haroon, 59, said the “government is also responsible for this incident.”
According to Ramzan, such barbaric incidents tarnish the community’s reputation. And in today’s communal environment, it could have heavy repercussions.
“Registration is essential. In Ajmer, people establish madrasas or mosques and start soliciting donations. Those madrasas not functioning properly should be shut down,” he added.
Ramzan and Haroon advocated for creating regulations for building mosques and madrasas. They proposed the formation of a committee where all the documents of the madrasas would be submitted.
According to Ramzan, there should be a rule mandating that mosques be built on the basis of population. “Many mosques are left empty, which is also disrespectful,” he emphasized.
Meanwhile, Sharif is planning to prevent madrasas and mosques from becoming deserted. He is planning to initiate a campaign, aiming to reopen Muhammadi mosque as soon as possible. His three-member team will visit neighbouring areas to encourage people to return to the mosque for namaz. This will boost the confidence of the children to come back.
“I don’t want a single child to be deprived of education. I won’t breathe easy until I provide them a safe space,” he emphasised.
Mohammad Yusuf, an affiliate of Mohammedi Masjid recalled that after leading the Friday prayers on 26 April, maulana Mahir had said in his khutba, “Everyone should regularly perform their namaz as tomorrow you may have to perform namaz for my funeral.”
Abbasi, meanwhile, is embarrassed about the incident. He wants to start his good touch, bad touch campaign as soon as possible.
“It’s a work being done for the welfare of the community.” His group sets off to another mosque in a car.
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)