‘He never shied from taking a stand’
BUDAUN/NEWDELHI: Outside the primary school in western Uttar Pradesh’s Budaun, a seven-hour drive from Delhi, Talat Jalal, an elderly school principal recalls the verse from Milton’s Paradise Regained — The childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day. In order to know the person behind Najeeb Ahmad, the JNU student who disappeared from the hostel a year ago, HT went to the town where the 29-year-old MSc student had spent his childhood and went to school.
“He was different,” Jalal, the owner and principal of Budaun Public School says, remembering Najeeb whom she taught in the primary school.
“He never shied from taking a stand. If he felt strongly about an issue, he was ready to take risks. When some kids indulged in mischief and I asked students who did it, Najeeb came forward and named the troublemakers despite knowing it would earn him the wrath of his classmates,” says Talat, remembering an incident when Najeeb was in Class 5.
He had no political affiliations or even expressed any interest in joining any party. I remember I was talking about something, I had mentioned AISA (the left wing All India Students Association) in passing. He asked me, ‘Bhai, ye AISA kya hota hai?’ MOHD QASIM, Najeeb’s friend and roommate at Mahi-Mandvi hostel
Najeeb studied at Talat’s school up to Class 8.
Mohammed Asim, who studied with Najeeb from lower kindergarten to Class 5, remembers Najeeb telling his friends that he would become a doctor.
Born to a carpenter and a homemaker, his classmates say he always wanted to be a doctor.
Maybe, it was also because he was born and lived in Vaidon Tola. The locality was once home to doctors and physicians during the British rule. Hence, the name Vaidon, meaning a doctor or a physician and Tola, which translates to a community or a home.
A month, before he went missing, another childhood friend Yasir had met Najeeb in the local market. “We were not in touch for many years. At the market, we recognised each other. He told me he had got admission in JNU. It was a short meeting but he seemed fine.”
Though HT was able to trace anecdotal memories of the young student, Najeeb’s life starts to become a blur once he leaves the village school. At Florence Public School, on the state highway leading to Budaun city, where Najeeb studied till Class 12, not one teacher remembers him. Everyone knew about Najeeb, the Budaun boy who went missing but nobody knew him as a student of the school.
Naveen Kumar Singh, who has been the school principal for past 12 years, says, “We did not know he studied here.” Singh could not even recognise him, when we showed him his pictures.
After graduation in Bareilly, around 50 km from Budaun, Najeeb’s journey took him to the Jawaharlal Nehru University. But even in JNU, nobody knows man behind the name. He had only been in the university for less than three months before he disappeared at around noon on October 15, 2016. His classmates in the MSc Biotechnology programme, remember him as a quiet student who liked to keep to himself. His teachers say he was just one among the many faces they greet every year.
The only person who remember Najeeb beyond the narrative of the “missing JNU student”, is Mohd Qasim, his roommate at Mahi-Mandvi hostel.
Qasim says Najeeb was an introvert. He spoke of how Najeeb adhered to a strict schedule, which included attending classes, studying after the classes and talking to his mother.
“He had no political affiliations, or even expressed any interest in joining any party. I remember I was talking about something, I don’t remember exactly what but I had mentioned ‘AISA’ (the left wing All India Students Association) in passing. He asked me ‘Bhai, ye AISA kya hota hai?” recalls Qasim.