Mussoorie's 100-year-old sufi shrine desecrated, case filed
Dehradun, Jan. 26 -- Members of a Hindu right-wing outfit allegedly vandalised a "mazaar" (shrine), believed to be over 100 years old, built on private land in Mussoorie, the Uttarakhand police said on Sunday, adding that a case has been registered and security heightened to maintain law and order.
The incident took place on Saturday evening at Baba Bulleh Shah Mazaar, located on the property of Wynberg-Allen School, a reputed co-ed boarding school in Bala Hissar area of the hill town, police said.
"We have registered an FIR and are taking further action into the matter. The accused belong to a Hindutva group," senior sub-inspector Satinder Bhati of Mussoorie police station said.
Akram Khan, a local resident, in his complaint to the police alleged that around 6.45 pm on Saturday, around 25-30 people had entered the shrine carrying hammers and crowbars. "The group also desecrated religious books kept at the site, and one of them urinated on the wall of the shrine. The act was committed with the intention of spreading religious frenzy," Khan alleged in the complaint.
Mussoorie sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Rahul Anand said, "It was the school's property where the mazaar is located. We haven't received any complaint from the school regarding the vandalism and trespassing on their property."
"We have deployed adequate police personnel at the site to maintain law and order," he added.
On Sunday, an FIR against three known accused - Hari Om, Shivau, and Shraddha - and several unidentified people was registered under sections 196 (1) (b) (any act which is prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony between different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities), and 298 (injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult religion of any class) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) at Mussoorie police station.
A purported video of the incident surfaced on social media in which people can be seen first barging into the site, and then vandalising the structure of mazaar.
HT could not independently verify the authenticity of the widely-circulated video.
Lalit Sharma, the state chief of Hindu Raksha Dal, a right-wing outfit, admitted that the shrine was vandalised by members of his group.
"This is Devbhoomi, and we will not tolerate a mazaar of anyone whose tomb is in Pakistan. It has been here for only 100 years, and Sanatan Dharma has existed for thousands of years, so it was an encroachment. We had announced two days ago that we would vandalise it. Even if someone does something wrong on private property, we cannot accept it," Sharma claimed....
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