By Our Staff Reporter
Nainital, 22 Nov: The dispute over the construction of a mosque in Uttarkashi has now reached the Uttarakhand High Court. Members of the Sunni Muslim community in Uttarkashi are protesting against declaring the mosque illegal, while Hindu organisations have called the mosque illegal and demanded its land and construction records and in response have approached the High Court for protection of the mosque. The Court has now directed strict maintenance of law and order in the area and has fixed 27 November as the next date of hearing in the case.
The Uttarakhand High Court, while hearing the mosque security case of the Sunni community located on Bhatwari Road in Uttarkashi, has directed the District Magistrate and SSP of Uttarkashi to maintain law and order in all religious places there. Additionally, the Court has directed the Director General of Police (DGP) to inform the court about the situation by 27 November. The division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Manoj Kumar Tiwari and Justice Rakesh Thapliyal has fixed 27 November as the date for next hearing in the case.
It may be recalled that, recently, at the call of Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Devbhoomi Vichar Manch announced plans to submit a memorandum against the mosque at the tehsil level on 25 November. In addition, these organisations have also given a call for Mahapanchayat on 1 December in support of their demand. On the other hand, on behalf of the Muslim community, Ishtiaq Ahmed, Anwar Beg, Nasir Sheikh, and Nasir Khan shared that they had filed an appeal in the High Court last Monday. They have also claimed that the mosque, which is being called illegal, has all the documents from the land registry to Dakhil Kharij (Mutation), which, they further claim have also been submitted to the district administration earlier. According to them, the mosque is registered in the records of the Municipal Corporation since 1982 and in the Waqf Board UP since 1986, which currently comes under the Uttarakhand Waqf Board, Dehradun.
At the same time, the Hindu organisations claim that the documents related to the purchase of the mosque land have been tampered with and that the mosque has been built illegally. In fact, these organisations had also pressed this claim before Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami who had ordered a re-examination of the documents related to the mosque land ownership and construction during his last visit to Uttarkashi. However, there is no information available regarding the progress of the re-examination ordered in this connection, so far.
