Tense situation erupted in Mumbai's Dharavi on Saturday after hundreds of local residents gathered on a road and opposed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's plan to demolish an alleged illegal portion of Mehboob-E-Subhani mosque.
An official said that a large number of police personnel were deployed at the site to prevent any untoward incident in view of the huge gathering.
Meanwhile, a resident of Dharavi Samruddin Sheikh said that he has been and brought up in the region. "The structure that the BMC and other authorities are illegal was not constructed in a day. It took several days, months. Where were the officer then?"
"Today, the structure has taken shape of a mosque. Our emotions are attached to that mosque. Today, they are saying they will demolish the mosque... this has affected our emotions," Sheikh told news agency PTI.
A police official said that a team of BMC officials from the G-North administrative ward reached the 90-feet road in Dharavi around 9 am to demolish the illegal portion of Mehboob-E-Subhani masjid.
"Soon, a large number of local residents gathered at the spot and stopped the civic officials from entering the lane where the mosque is located," the official added.
He said that later, hundreds of people also gathered outside the Dharavi police station located there and squatted on the road to protest against the civic body's action.
A delegation from the mosque, BMC officials and Dharavi police held talks to resolve the matter. Given the pressure from the locals, the BMC stopped the demolition of the illegally constructed portion of the mosque for six days.
The local people, who are opposing the demolition, will now approach the court to get a stay on the municipal corporation's action.
Notably, Dharavi is a heavily populated colony and is considered to be Asia's largest slum.
The situation comes just weeks after massive row erupted over an alleged illegally constructed portion of a mosque in the Sanjauli area of Himachal Pradesh's Shimla.
Hindu right groups had been demanding the demolition of the mosque's portion which was built without authorisation. The groups even clashed with the police during their call for bandh, prompting authorities to lathi charge and use water cannons on them.
President of the Sanjauli Masjid Management Committee and Maulvi Shajad sent a proposal to the district authorities over the mosque row.
The masjid committee requested that the Nagar Nigam seal the portion of the mosque which is considered to be illegal. The proposal said that the court's decision will be honoured and if it finds the mosque to be illegal, then the committee itself will do whatever is required to maintain peace and harmony.
The masjid committee said that it will demolish the said illegal portion itself. "We saw that the communal harmony is being affected, we want it to be in tact in the country. We will also talk on the matter of Mandi. We don't have a problem on that," Qutub Mosque's Imam said.
