Minority community members want neutral agency to investigate

DEHRADUN: Days after the ‘Hindu Mahapanchayat“held by right-wing groups against a nearly six-decade-old system mosque In Uttarkashi which they described as “illegal”, members of the minority community in the area expressed apprehensions over “falsification of the mosque’s land records by the administration”. The move comes after the administration constituted an “encroachment inquiry committee to examine the documents”.
The committee formed by Uttarkashi DM is run by the SDM of Bhatwari, to which the mosque falls. The committee had issued notices to the mosque’s landowners last week, saying they “doubt the authenticity of the documents in their possession”.
Resident near mosque wants neutral agency to investigate
The notice was issued on November 24 and the Muslim side submitted its response along with land registration documents on November 26.
Ishtiaq Ahmad, a local resident who claims that his deceased father was one of the five landowners, told TOI: “In September, the DM and SDM, while citing land records with them, had said that the mosque was not illegal. This stance changed after the CM’s visit to Uttarkashi in early November, during which he had said that the administration would examine the documents.”
He added, “The DM constituted the committee under SDM to examine the documents. The SDM then issued notices to us saying that the documents were fake. The same SDM declared in September in a press release that the mosque was legal. We don’t know why they are doing this, 55 years after the mosque was registered.”
SDM Bhatwari Mukesh Ramola told TOI, “The committee will soon finish examining the documents submitted by the landowners of the mosques… They received notices after we suspected that the documents might be tampered with.