Toli Chowki, an area of the southern Indian city of Hyderabad with many Muslim residents, has been in an unwelcome spotlight in recent days.Credit...Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times
Hyderabad is a city in southern India whose residents have long gone abroad in search of greater wealth and opportunity. But it has come under scrutiny after one of its own was named in connection with an atrocity far away.
Sajid Akram, who died in attacking a Hanukkah celebration in Australia last Sunday, was born and grew up in a quiet Muslim neighborhood here. He left almost three decades ago and seldom came back.
Now, the mass shooting, which killed 15 people and led to the arrest of Mr. Akram’s son Naveed as the second gunman, has brought unwelcome attention on their relatives and other residents of the neighborhood, known as Toli Chowki. Many were wary of being held guilty by association, adding to the frustrations and pains of being part of a Muslim minority in a country that has grown more stridently Hindu. Others protested their innocence.
“This incident brought Toli Chowki fame through infamy,” said Mohammed Tajuddin, a neighbor of Sajid Akram’s brother. Anxious about the backlash that might come from connection to a terrorist attack, many in the neighborhood have stayed indoors this past week.
Mr. Akram, 50, was one of the roughly six million Muslims from India who have gone abroad in search of better lives. Though Muslims make up only about 15 percent of India’s population, they account for almost one-third of its emigrants, according to a study by Pew Research Center.
Many of these are Muslims from Hyderabad, who have been moving abroad since the 1940s: first to Pakistan; then to Australia, Britain, Canada and the United States; and most recently to countries in the Persian Gulf. In Toli Chowki, every house has at least one close relative working in a foreign land.
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