India, Jan. 8 -- Municipal authorities tore down a raft of encroachments on public land abutting a decades-old mosque in central Delhi's Turkman Gate area at 1.30am on Wednesday after a brief bout of stone pelting that led to minor injuries to five policemen and the arrest of five people.

Thirty-two bulldozers roared into the Old Delhi neighbourhood shortly after midnight, smashing through a cloak of silence blanketing the area on a chilly and windy night. By the time their thrum had died down at 3am, a banquet hall, a diagnostics centre, a room where Haj pilgrims stayed, portions of a road, a footpath and a car park were reduced to a pile of rubble.

The action - by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), with the help of Delhi Police...