Allahabad High Court orders removal of mosque, mazar in Chandrashekhar Azad Park

The Allahabad High Court has ordered the removal of a mosque and mazar inside the Chandrashekhar Azad Park, Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, opining that it wants the park free of all encroachments.

A Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice Piyush Agarwal held that all illegal encroachments in the park that came up after 1975 should be demolished and a compliance report should be submitted by the authorities by October 8.

"We want the park free of all encroachments", the Court said.

On September 30, the Court had asked the authorities to get proper assistance in the matter and posted it for final hearing.

"In fact, we find no assistance from any corner either for producing the document or otherwise rather as and when question was asked ... prayer was made to grant time to produce the document," the Court had noted at the time.

The petition was moved by one Jitender Singh through Advocate Hari Shankar Jain, who alleged that some members of the Muslim community were creating artificial graves to convert the park land into a graveyard and that they are trying to convert a building within the area of the Chandrashekhar Azad Park into a mosque.

The plea added that on February 23, when Singh had visited the park along with the other petitioner, he had noticed that a few persons had created artificial graves and were naming a building as a mosque.

"The members of Muslim community in their usual manner of capturing the land for their religious purposes are trying to construct a mosque within the park area and some artificial mazaars (grave yards) have been created at the instance of fundamentalists and the patronage of Waqf Board," the plea stated.

(Story to be updated)