In response to an order from the Himachal Pradesh High Court, members of Dev Bhoomi Sangarsh Samiti on Monday sent a memorandum to the Shimla Municipal Corporation commissioner requesting the demolition of the top three illegal storeys of the disputed Sanjauli mosque here. Samiti chairman Madan Thakur told PTI that in a memo sent to Municipal Commissioner Bhupinder Attri here, the Samiti members called for the illegal storeys to be demolished immediately and offered to raze them for free if the municipal commission encountered any problems.
According to him, the Dev Bhoomi Samiti is willing to remove the third and fourth floors of the five-story mosque at no cost, and three stories have been deemed unlawful, of which the top floor has been demolished. “We want to make it clear that our objective is not to cause law and order problems but to ensure the directions of the court are followed in letter and spirit,” Vijay Sharma, a co-convener of the Sam The Wakf Board and the mosque committee had already contested the municipal court’s rulings in the district court.
Nonetheless, the district court ordered the illegal construction to be demolished by December 30 and affirmed the municipal commissioner court’s ruling. The Wakf Board appealed the ruling in the High Court after it was made. The case’s next hearing is set on March 9. In the meantime, the All Himachal Muslims Organization held a press conference here on December 8 and claimed that the mosque is a legitimate house of worship rather than an incursion by presenting a 1915 income record.
According to Nazakat Ali Hashmi, head of the All Himachal Muslims Organization, the Sanjauli mosque has been around for over a century and has been documented in government records for many years. The mosque was established in 1915. It also showed up in the revenue reports during 1997–1998 and 2003. He had later claimed that records that merely listed the government as the landowner were evidence of tampering.
