lunawada gujarat when the flames of violence engulfed khanpur 25 km from here they also burnt down a scholars hopes to spread his passion for sanskrit among children in lunawada in panchmahals district his only fault he was a muslim daring to read the vedas puranas upanishads and the bhagvad gitafor 56yearold mohammad ilyas usman sibhai hounded out of his house in khanpur on march 1 along with his family the heartbreaking news came when he heard of his lifes collection of sanskrit texts many of them rare manuscripts being burnt down in his house by a mob his awards that he received for his sanskrit scholarship were also destroyedmeri milkat loot gayi lekin mujhe dukh nahi hua my house being razed did not hurt me says sibhai a graduate in mathematics and a sanskrit acharya from the vrihat gujarat sanskrit parishad of ahmedabad but burning my lifes collection has come as a big blow to me he addssibhai who now stays in a house in lunawada town teaches both mathematics and sanskrit at the seth ml vidya mandir in khanpur and he was happy that his passion was bearing fruit more and more students from both the communities were learning sanskritbut that was before all this mayhem happened i was happy to see the interest among the children about sanskrit literature he says pointing out the irony i have been working on my phd on the philosophy of ekishwarvaad or the theory that godisone he addsi heard that my neighbours most of whom are hindus tried their best to save my house they say that the mob came from outside the village but it broke my heart to see my lifes collection reduced to ashes i remember having bought the vedas at rs 1000 a book way back in 1969 i had a collection of all major indian poets including kalidas and even had books on vanaspati says sibhai who has been living in khanpur for the last 38 yearssibhai read all the four vedas and other texts like manu smriti the upanishad the puranas bhagvad gita the epics like ramayana and mahabharata and works of many other sanskrit poets a broken man sibhai now has to now travel 25 km to khanpur from here and back to attend classes every daybut none of my colleagues has cared to inquire what happened to me my students too have been indifferent people say that the mob came from outside khanpur but we had run away before our house was burnt and so i am not sure who burnt down our house when i went back to see the damage i found that my books were piled up in the middle of the room and burnt somebody deliberately wanted to destroy them my awards and certificates too have been destroyed perhaps they thought i shouldnt have read such texts this really hurts sanskrit is my passion and