Both townships hit the headlines as residents Khalid Mujahid (26) and Tariq Kasmi (28) were arrested for involvement in November 23 serial blasts.

The two had been arrested by the Special Task Force from Barabanki on December 22.

Kahlid Mujahid was one of four HuJI militants who planted the bombs and and triggered the blast at the Lucknow court on November 23. Others with him were Abdul Qadir, Sajjad (arrested in J&K) and one Jahid.

A resident of Mahatwan locality of Mandiyahun, Khalid was a recluse. While in his teens, he alongwith a cousin, Shahid, had studied "Hibz" (quranic principles) at a madarsa in Allahabad's Roshan Bag. In 2003, he went to the Amroha madarsa and studied "Arabic Alamayit" for six months.

On his return, after losing father Mohd Zamir Alam, he started teaching in a makeshift seminary run by his uncle Zahir Alam in neighbouring Mirdaha. His uncle is the Allahabad division chief of Jamait-e-Islami Hind.

Although Khalid had left Amroha in 2003, a Kashmiri friend from Amroha seminary often came to meet him.

Though Khalid's mother Nazma and wife Shabnam remained tight-lipped on this, his aunt Abida Taslim told The Indian Express: "We do not remember his name, but he came once last year and stayed at Khalid's house. He was an apple dealer." But he was the only Kashmiri guest the family had, she added.

Khalid's neighbours, however, had a different story to tell. Many Kashmiri youths selling shawls and Tariq Kasmi, father of three daughters and a son, is a resident of Sammopur village in Rani Ki Sarai. His father Riyaz and uncles Faiyaz, Mumtaz and Feroz are based in Dubai.

Tariq attained an eight-year education at Darul-ul-loom in Deoband (Saharanpur) and then studied Unani medicine at a college in Muzaffarnagar for the next three years.

For the last three years, he was running Azhar Unani Dawakhana in Sonharwa Bazaar in Rani Ki Sarai.

He too, the STF said, attained training in terror camps in Jammu and Kashmir in 2005 -- the year his family says he went for Haj to Mecca.

Tariq's uncle Mumtaz and father-in-law Mohd Aslam said he is an extremely social person who had people visiting him almost everyday. "Some of them were Kashmiris, but there is nothing wrong in hosting old friends," his father said.

While Tariq's neighbours did not say much, those who knew him in Rani Ki Sarai Bazar claimed that he hardly treated any patients. Instead, he hosted outsiders, apparently Kashmiris, at his home and clinic.

A policeman posted at Rani Ki Sarai said Tariq taught children everyday at a madarsa in Sonharwa bazaar for two hours.

On his part, his father said: "Tariq solely earned through Unani practice and was never into teaching Islam, except while working for Alami Ijtema of Tablighi Jammat held at Sherwan village near the infamous Sarai Meer township of Azamgarh recently."

STF sources say while Khalid was a active member of operational wing of HuJI, Tariq was the logistical head of the outfit in UP and had provided shelter to other militants — Sajjad, Tariq Kashmiri, Abdul Qadir and Imran — at his home in Sammopur a week ahead of the serial blasts.

The entire plan of serial blasts was finalised there on November 16 and 17, according to which, Tariq had accompanied Tariq Kashmiri and Imran alias Guru to the Faizabad court.