UP’s Sambhal district on high alert after officials survey Chandausi mosque on court order

By 6.15 p.m. the advocator commissioner and a peculiar squad formed aft consultation with the managing committee of the mosque, petitioners and section officials reached the tract for the survey.

As connection dispersed that a survey of the mosque was being carried out, hundreds of Muslims rushed to the place, shutters of shops belonging some the number and bulk communities were downed and those surviving adjacent placed themselves astatine the roofs of their houses.

Apprehending trouble, the section medication has turned the spot into a heavy protected portion with a important deployment of constabulary and Provincial Armed Constabulary personnel.

District Magistrate Rajender Pensiya, Superintendent of Police Krishna Kumar and different officers asked the imam of the mosque to entreaty from loudspeakers to radical to support bid and communal harmony.

The section medication has not allowed Rishi Raj Giri, the mahant of the Kalki Devi temple who has moved the court, to spell wrong the mosque with the survey squad successful presumption of palpable tension.

Giri has claimed successful his exertion that a temple called Harihar temple was demolished to physique the mosque, adding that the survey would uncover the remains of the temple astatine the site.

“We person clinching grounds to buttress our assertion that the temple existed determination was demolished to physique the Shahi Jama Masjid. The tribunal has appointed the commissioner aft proceeding us. The commissioner volition taxable the study to the tribunal connected November 29 on with the photos and the videography conducted during the survey connected Tuesday evening,” said Vishnu Shanker Jain, who represented the mahant successful the court.

The assertion has added to the flurry of claims made by Hindu activists connected a fig of Muslim places of worship successful Uttar Pradesh that each of specified places had been built aft demolishing temples during the Mughal period, raising governmental and communal tensions successful the state.

Reacting to the photograph and video survey of the mosque, Sambhal MP Zia-Ur -Rehman Birk, who belongs to the Samajwadi Party, said, “The outsiders person attempted to disturb the communal harmony of the territory by moving a petition of specified quality successful the court. The apex tribunal has already directed that arsenic per the Places of Worship Act 1991, each spiritual places that existed successful 1947 volition stay astatine their places. The Jama Masjid has been a humanities spot of worship for Muslims for respective centuries and hence nary effort should beryllium made to situation its existence. We person the close to determination to the precocious tribunal if we are not satisfied by the directive of the section court.”

Pensiya, the territory magistrate, said the archetypal survey was implicit and that the medication was acceptable to behaviour a 2nd survey earlier November 29 if necessary.

“We are successful interaction with section Muslim leaders and maulvis and they person each agreed that the communal harmony of the territory volition not beryllium disturbed pursuing regular developments related to the issue. I person already directed that those recovered spreading rumours successful this respect online oregon offline volition look ineligible action,” helium said.

“Elaborate arrangements person been made to guarantee bid successful the territory and a ample posse of policemen has been deployed astir the mosque to forestall immoderate trouble,” said the superintendent of police.

The lawyer for the mosque side, Jafar Ali, said the survey had been conducted hurriedly contempt determination being clip till November 29 to implicit it. “We volition situation the section tribunal verdict successful the precocious tribunal if request be,” helium added.