A part of a nearly 180-year-old mosque in Uttar Pradesh’s Fatehpur was demolished on Tuesday as it was allegedly encroached on the city’s Banda-Fatehpur road. The development came when the mosque committee approached the Allahabad High Court for relief, despite the district administration saying it had sent a notice to the Nuri Jama Masjid to remove the encroached structure.
“The committee has filed some petitions in the High Court but they are yet to be listed for hearing,” Avinash Tripathi, Additional District Magistrate, Finance and Revenue, Fatehpur, told The Indian Express. “The structure that was destroyed today was built in the last three years and the main building of the mosque is intact,” he clarified.
According to Tripathi, the Public Works Department had issued a notice to 139 people including shopkeepers, house owners and the mosque committee in August to remove the structures built by encroaching on the road. The PWD had sought to remove the encroachment to “strengthen the road and start construction of drains”, he added.
“The PWD had marked the encroached sections of all the buildings. All those notices of encroachment were removed in September. The mosque committee has also demolished the encroached part of the shop built next to the mosque. The committee had promised to remove the structure which is part of the mosque, but it has not been done,’ said ADM Tripathi.
Members of the mosque committee were not available for comment.
The PWD sought the administration’s help in arranging security while demolishing the alleged encroached structure of the mosque. Tripathi said that enough police were deployed to maintain peace and security at the scene, adding that there was no protest during the demolition.