Gujarat: In Maliya Miyana, a small town in India's western Gujarat, don't raise an alarm if someone asks for directions to Osama bin Laden's home.
Hanif Mohammed Sandhwani, a medicine shop owner, is the self-proclaimed 'Osama' of Maliya Miyana.
He got the title not because of his striking resemblance to the al-Qaeda chief the 37-year-old with a flowing beard and Muslim headgear is only a faint reminder of his infamous namesake - but because of his insistence on being called a look-alike.
Walking around with his nephew's expensive toy gun, the kind that looks nearly real, Sandhwani was first noticed by a local cop last year, who showed him a television report on the Taliban and Osama, knowing little the effect it was having on the high school dropout.
While nobody knows what really inspired the otherwise kind and gentle Sandhwani to become Osama, they nevertheless humour him his bizarre fancy and have no problem with his fixation for any news on the terror mastermind and daily speeches about the Iraq war.
"He is a very close friend of mine. But the folk here call him Laden and this is how he is now known. When he goes out for a walk, they say 'Laden is around.' But he is a good man, and an innocent one at that," says Sandhwani's friend Ayub Allarakha.
Infact everyone in the tiny hamlet jokes about their 'Osama' being one day invited by the US president but Sandhwani in his now characteristic style shrugs away the possibility, announcing with utmost solemnity - "George W Bush would be too scared of me."
"Bush will not call me. When fear gets inside a man, it does not come out. It is like a disease, and till it goes away he cannot breathe. Bush is scared of Laden, he will fear a man looking like him could be the terrorist himself. He will be scared," says Sandhwani.
But he won't mind calling on Bush for a chat, he was quick to add.
Though Sandhwani, born to a poor farmer's family, could not finish school, he knows six foreign languages and his keen knowledge of traditional medicine is something the townfolk count on.
His friends joke that a US satellite might some day spot him and Bush might bomb Maliya Miyana instead of Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden is suspected to be hiding.
US troops and allies have been on the lookout for Laden since attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, which were believed to have been masterminded by him.
US officials say they believe Laden is hiding somewhere in the rugged borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Pakistani forces aided by the US have deployed over 75,000 troops since March in the semi-autonomous tribal areas, which have never been under the full control of Pakistan's government, to root out terrorists.
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