Amid fears that Delhi’s historic Sunehri Bagh Masjid could be demolished to purportedly ease traffic congestion, here is a look at mosques elsewhere in India that have been razed to make roads.
The entire episode surrounding the proposed demolition of Sunehri Bagh Masjid has drawn public ire over the last couple of weeks. After a publicly issued New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) notice, which sought public opinion on the proposed demolition of the Grade III Heritage building, hundreds of people responded to oppose it.
The 150-year-old mosque, which is located on a roundabout of Sunehri Bagh Road, Motilal Nehru Marg, and Kamraj Marg, has been marked for causing traffic problems in the area. This has led to the proposal being connected to other instances where mosques were razed or proposed to be demolished under the pretext of anti-encroachment drives.
Outlook looks at a few other instances where mosques were demolished or proposed to be demolished owing to the historically and religiously significant structures being considered as roadblocks
In January 2023, Shahi Masjid, a 16th-century mosque situated on GT Road in Uttar Pradesh‘s Saidabad, Prayagraj, was demolished by the authorities for the widening of the highway. The Mosque’s Imam, Md. Babul Hussain, said that the matter was listed in the lower court for January 16, 2023, but was razed down before it could reach the court. It was listed in the lower court after the Allahabad High Court had dismissed the petition to stay the proposal for the demolition.
At the peak of the pandemic in 2021, the Masjid Garib Nawaz Al Maroof was demolished by the Barabanki district administration in Uttar Pradesh on the grounds of it being an ‘illegal structure’.
“The action was taken as per court order. There was no mosque. It was an illegal structure where anti-social elements were staying,” Dr Adarsh Singh, the Barabanki District Magistrate had said on being asked about the demolition. Eight members of the mosque committee were charged for ‘fraudulently registering’ the mosque with the Waqf Board.
In October 2017, in a bid to decrease traffic congestion in the locality, members of the Shia Community gave their nod to demolish a compound wall of the Jamia Masjid in addition to land donation to ease the much-discussed situation in Bengaluru.
“We have decided to donate over 1,000 sq ft of land for road widening, and also around 4,000 sq ft from the graveyard area. The sole purpose behind this is the convenience of city dwellers. We all know how dangerous the traffic gets, and to ease the traffic, we have taken this step,” the committee president Mir Ali had told ANI at the time.
In November 2022, a 300-year-old mosque was razed to the ground in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar because it blocked the 709 AD Panipat-Khatima highway in Sherpur. The Muzaffarnagar SDM had claimed that the razing was carried out to expand the highwya and the locals had failed to move the structure by the stipulated period.