Barabanki mosque demolition: Waqf Board inspector, others booked for forging documents
LUCKNOW : The Barabanki district administration on Thursday midnight registered an FIR against the then inspector of UP Sunni Central Waqf Board, seven members of a committee and some other unidentified people, for allegedly forging documents to get a mosque, which was razed in Barabanki’s Ram Sanehi Ghat tehsil recently, registered as a Waqf property, said senior police officials on Friday. On May 17, the local administration had demolished the mosque claiming that it was encroachment on government land.
LUCKNOW : The Barabanki district administration on Thursday midnight registered an FIR against the then inspector of UP Sunni Central Waqf Board, seven members of a committee and some other unidentified people, for allegedly forging documents to get a mosque, which was razed in Barabanki’s Ram Sanehi Ghat tehsil recently, registered as a Waqf property, said senior police officials on Friday.
On May 17, the local administration had demolished the mosque while claiming that it was residential encroachment on government land. Following the demolition, a controversy erupted over the issue with some Muslim groups alleging that the act was illegal. The Ram Sanehi Ghat tehsil is located on a highway on the Barabanki-Ayodhya border.
A senior police officer said district minority welfare officer Son Kumar had lodged an FIR with Ram Sanehi Ghat police station against the then inspector of UP Sunni Central Waqf Board, Mohd Taha, and seven other people for registering the mosque as the waqf property without taking the report from revenue officials regarding the ownership of the land.
He said the seven members of the committee managing the mosque in question including its president Mushtaq Ali, vice president Waqeel Ahmad, secretary Mushtaqeem Khajin as well as its three members Dastgir, Afzaal and Naseem besides some other unidentified people had been booked in this connection.
He said the mosque in question was registered as the Waqf property in June 2019 after declaring it as a mosque. The cop said the accused had been booked under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 419 (for cheating by impersonation), 420 (for fraudulently inducing property), 467 (for forging of documents), 468 (for using forged documents for cheating purpose) and 471 (for using forged documents as genuine). The HT is in possession of the PDF copy of the FIR lodged in this connection.
He said a police sub-inspector Rajesh Kumar Gupta was investigating the matter further after the FIR was registered on the basis of facts surfaced during the enquiry conducted by tehsildar, Ram Sanehi Ghat.
The FIR has been registered after UP Sunni Central Waqf Board, while claiming that it was a 100-year-old mosque, said it will approach the Allahabad high court demanding restoration of the mosque, a high-level judicial inquiry and action against the officers concerned.
Earlier, Waqf Board chairman Zufar Ahmad Faruqi had termed the razing of the mosque “the high handedness of the local administration”.