Tucked in Delhi’s south-east, Jamia Nagar is a sprawling locality home to the Jamia Millia Islamia university as also numerous residential areas around it. It is a curiously mixed place, with small industries, cramped workshops and famous eateries jostling for space with congested housing and visibly unplanned areas. Yet, it hosts one of the finest universities in India and prominent Muslim intellectuals and public figures live here.
The area is often referred to as a Muslim ghetto and shrouded in stereotypes. Muslims constitute the majority in this locality, with the total population numbering over 3 lakh. In 2008, the Batla House encounter took place here, and that gave a negative spin to the entire neighbourhood.
