Security tight, shops cleared around India’s Shahi Masjid a day after clashes over demolition

Authorities cleared shops around the Shahi Masjid in Ujjain, India under police supervision on Tuesday and brought in scaffolding material for the structure, as senior officials monitored security arrangements a day after clashes broke out at the site, ANI reported. The area was reported calm on Tuesday morning, with a heavy security presence in place.

The clashes on Monday came after part of the mosque began to be removed as part of a road-widening project ahead of preparations for the Simhastha Kumbh Mela. A large crowd confronted police at the site, and police said they fired tear gas and used batons to disperse the crowd following incidents of stone-throwing, according to ANI. Rapid Action Force personnel were deployed alongside more than 2,500 police officers and personnel in the city, with Superintendent of Police Pradeep Sharma present at the scene and a citywide alert issued.

District Collector Raushan Kumar said the portion of the mosque at Kshatriya Chowk falling within the road-widening zone was being removed ‘voluntarily’ by members of the community and the religious group associated with it, and urged people not to give credence to rumours, according to ANI.

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has since disposed of the case after the Shahi Masjid Committee and the state administration reached a compromise. Advocate Kuldeep Pathak, representing the committee, told reporters the case had gone to a division bench of Justices Subodh Abhyankar and Jaykumar Pillai on appeal after a single bench earlier dismissed the committee’s petition. Under the settlement, the committee agreed to clear roughly three feet of the structure, down from the roughly nine and a half feet the administration had sought, and said demolition work on that portion had already begun. In return, Pathak said, the administration agreed to provide alternative arrangements for shops being removed, including additional floor-area allowance, compensation under standard acquisition norms, and relocation of the mosque’s minaret elsewhere within the complex. The court has directed both sides to adhere strictly to the settlement’s terms.

The dispute began over the weekend, when hundreds of people gathered in and around the mosque overnight to protest the planned demolition of part of the structure, which authorities said falls within a roughly 900-metre stretch of road being widened from Kanthal Chowk to Gopal Mandir. Mosque officials had objected to the plan, with the mosque’s imam arguing that even a partial structural change could affect the rest of the building. Officials said around 2,000 police personnel were deployed at the height of Monday’s tension, with barricades restricting movement around the site.

Pakistan expresses concern

Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesperson expressed concern over what the statement described as the systematic, state-sponsored demolition of Islamic religious sites in India. According to the spokesperson [name requires verification], the demolition of such sites under various pretexts violates the 1950 India-Pakistan agreement guaranteeing the rights and protection of religious minorities, as well as India’s own Places of Worship Act, 1991, under which a place of worship’s religious character is meant to remain as it was on August 15, 1947.

The spokesperson said the ongoing campaign had put centuries-old heritage sites and places of worship at risk, naming Ajmer Sharif and the Saharanpur collectorate mosque among sites affected, and cited the 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid as, in the spokesperson’s words, a reminder of an ideology rooted in religious intolerance, prejudice and hatred.