LUCKNOW: A first information report (FIR) has been registered against Samajwadi Party MP Ziaur Rahman Barq and local SP MLA Iqbal Mehmood’s son Sohail Iqbal in connection with Sunday’s violence during protests to oppose a court-ordered survey of a Mughal-era Shahi Jama Masjid in Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal district.
Barq and Sohail have been accused of instigating people that led to Sunday’s violence that killed four people and left dozens injured.
District magistrate Rajendra Pensiya and superintendent of police (SP) Sambhal Krishna Kumar Bishnoi told a news conference on Monday afternoon that the situation in the district has been under control since Sunday afternoon and the rioters would be identified on the basis of video footage, arrested and sent to jail.
In all, seven FIRs have been registered. Barq and Iqbal are among the six people who were named as accused in the FIRs apart from the 2,750 others.
Tension had been brewing in the area since Tuesday after a civil court directed the advocate commissioner to conduct a survey of the mosque following a petition that claimed the mosque was built after razing a Hindu temple in 1529. An “initial survey” of the mosque was held the same day.
When the team returned to the mosque with district officials on Sunday, a crowd started gathering behind the mosque and on all the roads behind the mosque, shouting slogans. Police said the mob also threw stones.
“The stone pelting intensified after the survey was over, prompting the police to respond with a lathi charge and tear gas shells… Prime facie, it seems the violence was planned. However, the investigation is underway,” said Bishnoi, pointing out that people had come for the protest from 10-15 km away.
He added that 25 people have been arrested.
“We have all the CCTV footage, the rioters will soon be arrested,” he said.
The district administration has already imposed prohibitory orders and barred the entry of outsiders into Sambhal till November 30. Internet services are suspended in Sambhal tehsil and the district administration declared a holiday in all schools for Monday.
“Things are normal today, shops are open today”, said Bishnoi.
SP MP, Zia Ur Rehman Barq, who has been accused of instigating the violence, told news agency ANI: “It is a pre-planned incident. Across the country, Muslims are being targeted and such a bad situation has never happened after independence. The way the Places of Worship Act is being violated. One by one pleas are being submitted and hearing is happening on the same day itself and order is also coming, same day DM and SP went and conducted the survey. People were stopped from offering Namaz. What was the necessity of a second survey?”
Located in the heart of the city in the Kotgarvi locality, the Shahi Jama Masjid is an important religious and historical site for the Muslim community. It is believed to have been constructed around the 16th century by Mir Hindu Beg, a Mughal general. The mosque is a protected monument notified on December 22, 1920, under section 3, subsection (3) of the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act, 1904. It figures on ASI’s website (Moradabad division) in the list of centrally protected monuments.
The Sambhal court’s survey order opened the latest in a litany of controversies surrounding Muslim places of worship that some right-wing activists say were built after demolishing temples during the Mughal era. Vishnu Shankar Jain, who filed the petition over the Sambhal mosque, is also a petitioner in the Gynavapi case, and it was on his plea that a Varanasi court on April 8, 2022) ordered a survey of the mosque complex abutting the Kashi Vishwanath Temple.
To be sure, The Places of Worship (special provisions) Act 1991 prohibits conversion of any place of worship and provides for the maintenance of the religious character of any place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947.