Shahrukh Shaikh, 25, arrived in the slums of Govandi from Lucknow in the late 1990s with his parents. He'd had some early education back in Uttar Pradesh, but in Mumbai he had to start afresh. All he had was a photocopy of his final marksheet from Class III. Armed with it, Shahrukh arrived at Al-Kausar Urdu High School with his parents, certain he would be turned away. "But we weren't," Shahrukh remembers. "They accepted the photocopy and asked us to submit the original a few weeks later. I joined school the very next day."

A stepping stone

This was just the first of many acts of kindness shown by the school, which is part of Aisha Education Trust in Govandi. Started by Aslam Quasar and his brother Asghar Ali in 1993, when children from the neighbourhood found it impossible to get admissions to good schools following the 1992 riots, the trust also runs Sufi English School. Quasar's 30-year-old daughter Aisha Husiyae taught at this school and managed it until last Monday, when one of her students, a 12-year-old, allegedly stabbed her to death.