Mosque dispute: Uttarakhand HC asks authorities to ensure peace

The Uttarakhand High Court on Thursday directed the Uttarkashi district administration to maintain law and order in the town while keeping it informed of the situation after a dispute over a local mosque came to light.

A division bench comprising acting chief justice Manoj Kumar Tiwari and justice Vivek Bharti issued the directions to the Uttarkashi district magistrate and the superintendent of police while hearing a petition on Tuesday, 27 November demanding safety of the mosque on Bhatwari Road in Uttarkashi.

The mosque, built decades ago, is run by the Sunni community. The petitioner said a maha (grand) panchayat protesting against the mosque was being proposed on 1 December, and sought the court's intervention to disallow it.

Appearing on behalf of the state government, deputy advocate-general J.S. Virk submitted that the administration had not granted permission for the maha panchayat. Day and night patrolling was being carried out to maintain law and order and the situation in the town was normal, he claimed.

The petition, filed by an organisation called Alpasankhyak Seva Samiti of Uttarkashi, alleged that since 24 September, some organisations had been threatening to demolish the mosque, claiming it was illegal. Communal tension was brewing in the town as a result, the petition said, seeking protection for the mosque.

The petition further claimed that the mosque was built on land purchased in 1969 and the waqf commissioner inspected it in 1986 and found it to be legal.

The petitioner's advocate Kartikeya Hari Gupta informed the court that provocative statements in violation of the Supreme Court's order were being made by the organisations seeking the mosque's demolition.

The Supreme Court has ordered all the states to file a case directly if inflammatory statements against any caste, religion or community were resorted to, he argued.

The lawyer submitted that while failure to do so would violate the Supreme Court order, the state government had not yet filed any case against anyone in this matter violating the SC mandate. The next hearing is on 5 December.

An outfit by the name of Sanyukt Hindu Sangathan allegedly resorted to stone-pelting during a protest rally demanding the mosque's demolition in October, forcing the police to resort to a mild lathi charge to disperse the mob. The clashes, which erupted when the police tried to divert the route of the rally, left 27 persons, including seven policemen, injured. The outfit claims the mosque was built illegally on government land.