Bamhaur, November 12
The lohar tola of this vast village on the banks of river Tons, has visitors from
afar. Twenty five kilometres from district headquarters in Azamgarh, this is no tourist spot. Its famed blacksmith reportedly made the single-use handgun which killed music baron Gulshan Kumar.
People from far-off cities like Mumbai come here to order and acquire a ‘katta’ as the gun is called in local parlance. “Don’t expect to find a factory. All that is required to manufacture this deadly weapon is a souldering machine, welding machine and small crude saws to give the final shape”, says Azamgarh SSP S.K. Bhagat.
“If you are lucky you can get a deal for Rs 5,000.” A gun? we ask. “No a package deal — the gun, the sharpshooter and the cartige," informs the SSP. This is the only lucrative source of income in the area.
“When people ask me why there so many famous sharpshooters in the area, I reply that still we have not produced a single Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore. Without
opportunities for training and harnessing them in the right direction, the talent has gone waste”, points out the SSP of Azamgarh.
The little known village shot into fame after the murder of music magnate Gulshan Kumar. The arm which was discovered at the murder site marked Made in Bamhaur, informs the SSP. This led to a wild search for this place. The police was not sure if it was in Europe or some other place. Finally it was
discovered in the "back of behind” narrates Mr Bhagat.
Travelling to Azamgarh, this is the only cottage industry that we hear of. While ordinary people on the street give precise directions to the village, the residents of the 20-odd houses which forms the lohar tola clamp up at the site of strangers.
At first they completely deny that they are any longer blacksmiths. The women who first come out say that they work on the farms and now no one carries on the traditional trade. Gradually as they open up, they admit that they indeed make hansiya, hathoudi and hansua (sickle, hammer and traditional chopping knife) on order.
Munnu, an old man in the village, says that the young boys do not want to follow the trade any longer. Around 25 children from the village, including 11 girls, study at Kashi Intercollege at nearby Hajipur run by local MLA Chandradev Yadav.
Raju Yadav, a village student of class VIII, follows this reporter to the car and accidentally blurts out the truth. Making katta is very much a secret pastime of the villagers. Clients come regularly. But the villagers are now cautious. The police regularly comes to blackmail them and get their share of money, informs the young lad. “As a matter of fact, the villagers thought you were from the CRPF and that is why they were so scared”, he informs in his childlike innocence.
According to Nisar Ahmad, a resident of Azamgarh who now does business in Mumbai and Lucknow, development has bypassed the district. The economy of Azamgarh in general and Sari Mir in particular is dependent on the remittances sent by the family member working in the Gulf or Far East countries. “They are uneducated and mostly work as drivers, run laundries or do such menial jobs. Perhaps the only crime they may be indulging in is occasionally sending back home money through the hawala. This is often
because they do not have the skills to access a bank”.
He recalls that when after the first Gulf war many of them lost their jobs or returned temporarily, the local bazaars lost their sheen. No one had money to buy things. The place suddenly looked dead.
