Even as the call for Asr prayers resonated through Baghpat’s Gangnoli village on Sunday evening, a sense of solemnity filled the air. Maulana Ibrahim, his voice quivering with grief, led a small congregation of men gathered inside the mosque — a sacred space that had witnessed unspeakable tragedy a day earlier.

The echoes of the previous day’s horror still lingered, as it was in this very mosque, where he had spent eight years teaching the Quran, that his wife and two young daughters met their untimely demise at the hands of two of his own students.

“Meri zindagi khatam ho gayi… sab chale gaye (my life is over, my whole family is gone),” whispered Ibrahim while sitting on the cold floor, after the prayers, staring blankly.

The Maulana had been in Deoband, 100 km away, to receive the Ta

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