Mosque-temple spat: Why has India’s Sambhal exploded into violent clashes?

New Delhi, India — When Nayeem Ahmad, 35, near his sweets store connected Sunday greeting to bargain cooking oil, his younger brother, Tasleem, did not cognize that interreligious tensions were boiling implicit successful Sambhal, their hometown successful bluish India’s Uttar Pradesh state.

Within a fewer minutes, Tasleem received a telephone telephone helium volition ne'er forget: “My elder member was changeable dormant by the constabulary successful daylight.”

Protests had breached retired successful Sambhal connected Sunday greeting aft a section tribunal ordered an archaeological survey of a 16th-century mosque, the Shahi Jama Masjid, acting connected a petition claiming that a Hindu temple erstwhile stood successful its place.

Amid clashes with the police, astatine slightest 5 radical person died from slug injuries. The families of the victims and different protesters impeach the constabulary of shooting them dead. The police, successful turn, accidental “miscreants opened fire” and they “are investigating the root of the gunfire”.

After the violence, the territory authorities snapped the internet, ordered the closure of schools, and barred introduction of immoderate outsider arsenic markets remained unopen amid a constabulary crackdown and curfew-like situation, locals told Al Jazeera.

So, what triggered the protests successful Uttar Pradesh, India’s biggest state; however unsocial is the assertion of a mosque being built implicit a temple, and wherefore bash immoderate elder lawyers blasted the country’s apical tribunal for each of this?

Armed constabulary unit basal defender pursuing spiritual unit adjacent the Shahi Jama Masjid successful Sambhal connected November 24, 2024 [AFP]

What triggered the Sambhal protests?

Over the past 3 years, Hindu nationalist groups and activists person flooded the Indian judiciary with petitions crossed respective states, alleging that Muslim spiritual sites are built connected razed Hindu temples.

On November 19, a section tribunal successful Sambhal heard 1 specified petition, which claimed that a Harihar Temple was converted into a mosque successful 1529, pleading that the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) ought “to negociate and to person implicit control” implicit the site.

The tribunal ordered a survey of the mosque premises, which took spot connected the aforesaid day. The team, however, returned for a 2nd sojourn successful the aboriginal hours of Sunday morning, and “the quality dispersed panic rapidly crossed the town”, Mashood Ali Farooqui, an advocator who was portion of the survey team, told Al Jazeera.

“Misinformation dispersed rapidly that the survey squad was digging wrong the mosque, and it triggered the assemblage gathered astir the mosque,” helium said, adding that from his experiences, “we recovered thing retired of spot oregon contradicting evidence”.

Some activists accompanying the survey squad besides raised Hindu nationalist slogans, said Farooqui, adding “it was an irresponsible enactment that worsened the situation”.

The plaintiffs successful this case, led by advocator Vishnu Shankar Jain, are besides down respective akin petitions claiming determination were temples wherever immoderate mosques basal contiguous successful the Uttar Pradesh cities of Varanasi, Mathura, and Agra. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rules Uttar Pradesh.

The Shahi Jama Masjid enjoys the authoritative presumption of a “protected monument” and has been earlier declared a “monument of nationalist importance”. It is among the 3 important mosques — 2 others being successful Haryana state’s Panipat and the demolished Babri Masjid successful Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh — built during Mughal Emperor Babur’s reign.

Is the survey legal?

In 1991, India’s Parliament passed the Places of Worship Act. That instrumentality fundamentally laid down that the spiritual quality of each places of worship would stay the aforesaid arsenic it was connected August 15, 1947 — erstwhile British India was divided into India and Pakistan — and could not beryllium changed.

The trigger for the instrumentality was the wide mobilisation run led by the BJP’s leaders to bring tens of thousands of activists to the metropolis of Ayodhya to request that a temple beryllium built astatine the tract of the historical Babri Masjid. Ayodhya, according to Hindu scriptures, was the birthplace of God Ram, and far-right Hindu activists person agelong alleged that the mosque was built connected a demolished Ram temple.

The instrumentality could not halt a mob from tearing down the mosque successful 1992. But successful 2019, portion awarding the onshore connected which the mosque erstwhile stood to a spot to physique a temple — and allotting a spot of onshore elsewhere for the operation of a mosque — the Supreme Court of India upheld the Places of Worship Act, making it wide that the “court cannot entertain claims that stem from the actions of Mughal rulers against Hindu places of worship today”.

However, erstwhile a akin mosque-atop-temple case, from Varanasi, Modi’s parliamentary constituency, reached the Supreme Court successful May 2022, the tribunal of past Chief Justice DY Chandrachud allowed an archaeological survey.

While noting that determination could beryllium nary conversion of the place, Chandrachud said the structure’s “original character” could ever beryllium determined. Later that month, a section tribunal successful Mathura admitted a plea seeking the transportation of the onshore of the Shahi Idgah mosque successful the metropolis to a Hindu spot for the operation of a temple to God Krishna.

“It was a truly unsafe flip-flop by the main justice,” said Colin Gonsalves, a elder lawyer and laminitis of the Human Rights Law Network. “It has opened floodgates of akin pleas that endanger the presumption of Muslims successful India.”

Since then, galore specified cases person been filed, often supported by lawmakers of the BJP.

Who is responsible?

“By closing the Ayodhya verdict, the apical tribunal had believed that it has pushed the genie of communal majoritarianism backmost successful the bottle,” said Sanjay Hegde, a elder Supreme Court lawyer.

However, Chandrachud’s “unguarded comments successful the Varanasi case, which were not adjacent sought by counsel for the parties, stoked the fires crossed the state and the genie resurfaced with caller claims”, Hegde added.

Nadeem Khan, the nationalist caput of the Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR), an advocacy radical that is successful Sambhal connected a fact-finding mission, told Al Jazeera that the “survey of mosques has turned into an instrumentality of governmental strength”.

“The Muslim assemblage fears that these surveys volition pb to losses of their places of worship,” Khan told Al Jazeera. “Because of Chandrachud’s comments, radical are losing their lives connected the streets. The Supreme Court opened this Pandora’s container and paved the way for further hooliganism.”

Gonsalves, the lawyer, recalled being shocked by Chandrachud’s comments erstwhile the Varanasi lawsuit reached the apical court.

“Instead of putting retired the occurrence immediately, present the fires are burning everyplace successful India,” helium said. “The judiciary allowed the communal forces a benignant of licence to instrumentality the instrumentality into their ain hands.”

Back astatine their tiny location successful Sambhal, Tasleem is attending to mourners aft his elder brother, Nayeem’s death. Nayeem is survived by his woman and 4 children, the eldest being 10 years old. “My member was not among the protesters and yet the constabulary killed him,” helium told Al Jazeera.

“Who should we inquire for justness now?”