Malegaon

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?Malegaon Maharashtra • India
Malegaon
Coordinates: 20°33′N 74°33′E / 20.55, 74.55
Time zone	IST (UTC+5:30)
Area • Elevation	• 438 m (1,437 ft)
District(s)	Nashik District
Population	1,200,000 (2007)
MLA	Shaikh Rasheed
Famous Personalities	Maulana Abdul Hameed Azhari, Mufti Mohammed Ismail, Shahid Akhter-Voltas Ltd.
Codes • Pincode • Telephone • Vehicle	• 423203 • +02554-xxxxxx • MH-41

Coordinates: 20°33′N 74°33′E / 20.55, 74.55

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can. (June 2007)

Malegaon is a city and a Municipal Corporation in Nashik district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is located at around 280 km northeast of state capital Mumbai. Malegaon lies at the confluence of Girna and Mosam rivers.

Malegaon, one of the largest cities in northwest Maharashtra, is a major textile producing centre and is famous for its power-looms.It daily produces about 1 crore meter cloths on 1 lakh power-looms. It is located on the Mumbai-Agra national highway (N.H.03). The town’s history and location appear to be the primary reasons for its communally polarised profile. Situated on the road linking Mumbai and Agra — now National Highway No 3 — it was once a small junction known as ‘Maliwadi’ (hamlet of gardens) and quickly gained the reputation for being a source of employment. When a local jahagirdar, Naro Shankar Raje Bahadur, started building a fort in the area in 1740, a project that took 20 years, a sizeable number of Muslim workers and artisans from places like Surat and northern India settled in the area. After the British capture of the Malegaon fort in 1818, Muslims from Hyderabad migrated to the region. The 1857 revolt saw many Momins from the north locate themselves here, and the pattern kept repeating itself over the years. Malegaon, with its growing Muslim presence, became something of a shelter and a source of employment for the community whenever it faced reversals. If famine in 1862 forced Muslim weavers in the Varanasi area to move to Malegaon, the political upheavals in the Hyderabad of the late 1940s and ’50s saw a similar exodus to the town. As for communal riots, which became a regular feature of the country from the ’60s onwards, they have also undoubtedly contributed to swelling the number of Muslim migrants to Malegaon. As majority of Malegaon's population belong to Hindu and Muslim communities, the vast city's education system has been able to support various languages (urdu/marathi/english) through numerous institutions:

Al - Jamayatul - Mohommedia Al- Khairiah's Mohammedia Tibbia College (Unani Medical),several madrasa for boys and girls, JAT Society's Arts, Science And Commerce Girls College, Girls' High School, The Anjuman Imdadut Tulba Sanstha's Arts& Commerce (English Meidum)night College, Arts, Sci., & Comm. College, Primary (Urdu), Zainab English medium Primary School, J.A.T. Boys' Primary School, ATT High School.

Maharaja Sayajirao Gaikwad Arts,Science and Commerce Colleges, Karmveer Bhausaheb Hire (KBH) Vidyalaya-High School and Junior college,K.B.H. Law College, New English School,M.G.Vidya Mandar's smt. Pushpatai Hire, Arts, Science & Commerce Mahila Mahavidyalaya, M.G.Vidya Mandir's L.V.H. English Medium School, M. G. Vidya Mandir's K.B.H. Institute of Management and Research, Sardar College of Education.

Despite all this, Malegaon has seen the infrastructure and quality of life deteriorate over the years. While population has grown from 1.21 lakh in 1961 to an estimated 10 lakh people now, the roads, drainage systems, civil hospital, telecommunication are still not developed fully.

1 Geography
2 2006 bombing
3 Demographics
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Geography

Malegaon is located at 18.42° N 77.53° E^[1]. It has an average elevation of 438 metres (1437 feet).

[edit] 2006 bombing

Main article: 2006 blasts at Malegaon

On 8 September 2006, at least 37 people, mostly Muslims, died and at least 125 were seriously injured when three bomb blasts hit a Muslim cemetery in Malegaon town. The blasts were timed to match with the surge of people leaving mosque after special Friday prayers for the Shab e Bara'at holy day. A curfew was imposed to prevent trouble in the town.

REDIRECT [News article in Indian Express on Hyderabad & Malegaon Blasts]Italic text

[edit] Demographics

As of 2001 India census^[2], Malegaon had a population of 409,190. Males constitute 51% of the population and females 49%. Malegaon has an average literacy rate of 66%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 70%, and female literacy is 61%. In Malegaon, 18% of the population is under 6 years of age.