Another link in communalism after the petition claiming that there is a temple under the mosque in Sambhal
Mohammad Hasan still does not understand how he was shot on the morning of 24 November. That day, Hasan had gone out to search for his younger brother amid stone pelting outside the Shahi Jama Masjid of Sambhal. Then some sharp object pierced his right arm. Whether it was a bullet or shrapnel, they did not know from whose side it had been fired – from the local people or the police. At that time, they did not even pay attention to who was staining what. From there the policemen first took him to the police station and then brought him to the district hospital. “I was stuck in the middle,” he said in a conversation three days after the incident. Whatever it was, it went through.
Five people were killed in that violence. Sambhal police has filed a case against two and a half thousand people, accusing them of violence. Hassan is also one of them. Most of the unknowns are anonymous people. Locals alleged that the bullets were fired by the police when there was a ruckus outside the mosque after the court ordered a survey. The claim behind the survey order is that there is a temple below the mosque.
Bereaved relatives of deceased 17 year old Ayaan
Hasan’s sister Ashiya Bibi said that she had been told by Hasan himself that he had been “shot” and was in police “custody” for his involvement in the violence. Ashiya told that the family is under pressure, “Hasan was not a part of the mob at all. He had gone there to search for his younger brother. Ashiya tells, “Our father passed away just twenty days ago. The younger brother had gone to his grave that morning. Hassan was present at the wrong place at the wrong time, that is his only fault.
This is the story of the five people killed. The families of all five come from the labor class. Two of the five killed are teenagers. Seventeen year old Mohammad Ayan was killed while going to work, eighteen year old Kaif had gone to get a deal for his shop and was killed. Twenty-two-year-old Bilal Ansari, who ran a handloom shop, was killed while waiting for a delivery from a Delhi-based distributor. Thirty-five year old Naeem Ghazi had gone to the market to buy oil and flour for the sweet shop.
Local eyewitnesses say that tension had been rife in Muslim areas of Sambhal since November 19, when advocate Vishnu Kumar Jain filed a petition on behalf of some Hindu petitioners in the court of Civil Judge Aditya Singh. It was claimed in the petition that the Shahi Mosque has been built on the ruins of Harihar Temple. The petition prayed for its discovery so that it could be opened for Hindus. Jain lawyers have earlier been part of similar cases in Ayodhya, Banaras and Mathura.
Old issue, new controversy
Mahant Rishiraj Giri, the head of Kaila Devi temple and the main petitioner, lives twenty kilometers away from this mosque. Before filing the petition, he had been continuously giving statements for a week that he had been ordered by Lord Hari himself to file the case.
“That is the Harihar temple,” he insists in a breaking voice over the walkie talkie amidst the armed police force. There has always been a temple. Babar destroyed it and built a mosque.” He takes the names of Baburnama and Ain-e-Akbari to refer to this. “Everything is recorded in the petition and is also available on the internet.”
Main petitioner Mahant Rishiraj Giri
He regrets the turn of events, “The deaths are unfortunate. The local people should not have interfered with the court order of survey.” Although he has never gone inside it himself, he still claims that a temple is present inside the mosque complex. He says that in his childhood he had dreamed that there was a Harihar temple in Sambhal. By the way, he took the decision to file the case only in the last year or so.
why now?
Mahant Giri says that the trial took place only now because this was “Hari’s wish”. The Muslim side says that the decision of the survey has been taken in haste, in which the possibility of communal tension was ignored.
Qamar Hussain, lawyer for the Muslim side, says, “The survey was ordered within hours of the petition being filed. The survey started at 5.30 pm. Before this, neither the administration nor the mosque committee was given any notice even though this is part of the process.” He mockingly said that this petition is like ”old wine in a new bottle”. He says, “After Ayodhya, it has become a trend to target places of worship of Muslims.”
The temple-mosque dispute has become permanent in Indian politics for a long time. Often its script is the same. Same thing happened in Banaras, when the conflict escalated after the court order to survey Gyanvapi Mosque in 2022. It was claimed that the Gyanvapi Mosque was built on the ruins of the Shringar Gauri Temple. An alleged Shivalinga was recovered in this survey. Similarly, Hindus in Mathura claim that the Shahi Idgah Mosque is built on top of a temple and is the birthplace of Lord Krishna. After this, the demand for the right to worship has started rising there too.
The case of Sambhal was not as famous as Kashi, Mathura or Ayodhya, but the mosque there had been a matter of controversy for a long time. In 1976, an Imam was murdered inside this mosque on the day of Shivratri, after which there was a month-long curfew. Maulana Mamluk ur Rehman Barq still remembers the long-term impact of that incident. His son Ziaur Rehman Barq is a Samajwadi Party MP, who along with MLA Nawaz Iqbal Mahmood’s son Sohail has been accused by the police of inciting violence. Sambhal Superintendent of Police Krishna Kumar Bishnoi says that only after Burke’s inflammatory statements, tension increased in the area and the situation became critical.
Delegation of Jamaat Ulema-e-Hind outside Sambhal police station
Maulana Burke and Samajwadi Party leaders believe that political intentions are at work behind this matter, “The by-election of Kundarki was held the day after the first survey, perhaps so that communal sentiments could be fanned.” After thirty years, BJP won in Kundarki and the very next day a survey was conducted again to instigate the minority population here.
BJP has accused Samajwadi Party of inciting violence. Uttar Pradesh Excise Minister Nitin Agarwal blamed the violence and arson on a feud for supremacy between the Turki and Pathan communities. Burke, who comes from the Turkish community, is accused of creating tension with Pathan leader Sohail Iqbal. Burke is a former MLA of Kundarki, who became MP in the last general elections. Due to this this seat has become vacant. Burke, who was in Delhi to attend the winter session of Parliament, told journalists that the police had written his name in the FIR to hide the truth.
The story of the claim that a mosque was built on the temple in Sambhal goes back to a report by the British archaeologist ACL Carlyle in the nineteenth century. The present petition cites a 1979 report of the Archaeological Survey of India and says that the mosque may have been built from the debris of an old temple. In the petition, questions have also been raised on the inscription bearing the name of Babar and doubts have been raised on the role of Babar in the construction of the mosque.
Meanwhile, there is silence on the streets of Sambhal. 27 people were arrested following the violence. All are Muslims. Among them, three are women and three are minors. More than seventy people have been detained on the basis of videos and photographs. Many shops, doors and windows of houses are seen closed as middle-aged men have left their homes out of fear of arrest. The fear is such that families are not able to express their grief in a loud voice over their killed, injured or arrested relatives.
Naeem’s mother Idrisa says, “Police are raiding houses, harassing people and accusing them of firing.” Kaif and Ayaan’s family members are also facing the same problem. Kaif’s father Mohammad Hussain folded his hands and said, “We are poor people.” Don’t want any more trouble.
