Uttarkashi Muslims ask admin to ensure peace amid campaign against mosque
Members of the community in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi submitted a memorandum seeking action against Hindu groups for allegedly spreading lies about the mosque
The Muslim community of Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi has asked the district administration and police to ensure peace amid a Hindu organisations’ call for a “mahapanchayat (grand assembly)” on December 1 against a five decade-old mosque.
Members of the community on Saturday submitted a memorandum to district magistrate Meharban Singh Bisht and police superintendent Amit Srivastava seeking action against Hindu groups for allegedly spreading lies about the mosque.
Halim Baig, a lawyer, said they have all the documents to prove the mosque’s legality. “Some Hindu outfit leaders spread lies about the mosque and said illegal activities take place there. We have also sought action against them.”
The Hindu outfits on November 7 announced the mahapanchayat after chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami asked the district administration to re-examine records of the mosque.
State Vishva Hindu Parishad chief Anuj Walia insisted the mosque is illegal. “They have claimed that it is a property of the Waqf Board. Then why is there a registry in the name of individuals? The property’s mutation was done in 2005 and it has been shown as plots. It clarifies that there was no structure there until 2005,” he said. He added they met the district administration for the re-examination of the records.
On November 2, the Hindu outfits deferred the mahapanchayat. Over 200 people, including eight members of Hindu right-wing outfits, were earlier booked for the violence during a protest on October 24. Agitators clashed with the police and pelted stones after being stopped, prompting a lathi charge. On October 26, the police arrested three men for allegedly violating the prohibitory orders imposed in the district.
On September 9, Sanyukt Sanatan Dharam Rakshak Sangh submitted a memorandum to Bisht demanding that the mosque be “demolished”, claiming the structure was “not registered in the official revenue records”.
Bisht constituted a committee to probe the claims. The panel found that the mosque was legal and the land it stood on was registered in the name of members of the Muslim community. The Hindu outfits announced a protest march against the mosque on October 24 despite the panel’s findings.
The protests against the mosque are the latest in a series of such incidents. In June last year, posters threatening Muslim shopkeepers to vacate their shops were put up in Uttarkashi’s Purola after two men, including a Muslim, allegedly attempted to abduct a girl. The two accused were arrested. In May this year, a court in Uttarkashi acquitted them.
In February, communal violence erupted in Haldwani when a team of district administration and local civic authorities demolished a madrasa and an “underground mosque-like structure” allegedly built illegally on government land. Five people were killed in the violence.
In September, a mob attacked shops belonging to Muslims seeking the arrest of a Muslim man accused of flashing at Nandanagar in Chamoli. Signboards banning entry of “non-Hindus” were put up the same month in some villages of Rudraprayag.
In October, a parking dispute triggered communal violence at Gauchar in Chamoli. Local traders and Hindu right-wing outfits staged a protest the same month over the alleged rape of a girl in Chamoli’s Tharali. A traders’ body in the Chamoli district last month asked Muslims to leave the Khansar area by December 31.
In October, shops of the Muslim community in Tehri Garhwal’s Kirti Nagar were ransacked over the alleged abduction of a minor girl. A month earlier, the Hindu outfit Rashtriya Sewa Sangh staged a protest march in Berinag town in Pithoragarh, demanding the demolition of a Muslim family’s house, claiming that it had been converted into a mosque.