Violence during UP mosque survey, mob torches vehicles, pelt stones

Tension has been brewing in Sambhal over the past few days after the Jama Masjid was surveyed last Tuesday on the orders of a local court following a petition that claimed that a Harihar temple stood at the site.

Lucknow: Several people, including cops, were injured as mob pelted stones and torched vehicles prompting the police to fire tear gas shells in Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal town, on Sunday during a court ordered survey of a famous mosque after some Hindu plaintiffs claimed that the mosque had been constructed after demolishing a temple during the Mughal period.

According to the police sources, thousands of people assembled before the Jama Masjid in Sambhal when the court appointed advocate commissioner reached to conduct the survey on Sunday morning and raised slogans against the survey.

Sources said that the mob demanded that the survey be stopped and indulged in heavy stone pelting in which around two dozen people, including cops, were injured. Senior officials, who were present on the spot, tried to persuade the protesters to disperse and warned of strict action but they did not heed the advice.

As the mob torched several vehicles near the mosque, the police fired tear gas shells and fired in the air to disperse the protesters. Sources said that around ten vehicles were torched by the mob.

Videos which went viral on social media purportedly showed burning vehicles and stones on the roads in the lanes near the mosque. The survey team, which spent around two hours inside the mosque, was escorted out by the police, sources said.

Around a dozen people were detained in connection with the violence, police officials said in Sambhal. A senior police official here said that NSA would be slapped on the trouble mongers.

The entire area had been barricaded and security personnel in strength had been deployed to maintain law and order. The situation was stated to be ‘’under control’’.

The survey report would be submitted in the court on November 29.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Commission had conducted videography of different parts of the Jama Masjid for around two hours during which the members of the Muslim community gathered in large numbers outside the Mosque and raised slogans against the Survey.

A district had on Monday appointed a Court Commission for the survey of the mosque after Hindu plaintiffs filed an application claiming that it had been constructed after demolishing a temple.

Hindu seer Rishiraj Giri and others had filed an application in the court of civil judge Aditya Kumar Singh claiming that the Jama Masjid was in fact Harihar Temple and that the Mosque had been constructed after demolishing the temple.

Vishnu Shankar Jain, the lawyer for the Hindu applicants, claimed that Mughal emperor Babar had demolished the Harihar Temple in the 16th century and got a Mosque constructed there.

Zafar Ali, a member of the Jama Masjid Committee, rejected the contention and said that there was no basis to claim that the Mosque had been constructed after demolishing a Temple.

According to the Hindu mythology, ‘Kalki Avtar’ (final incarnation of God Vishnu at the end of the Kali Yuga) would take place at Harihar Temple. The Hindus believe that ‘Kalki Avtar’ would destroy the evil and the wicked and usher in the ‘Sat Yuga’ (an age of purity and truth).