The tourist town of Shimla is at the center of the simmering communal tension which now has spread across other parts of the state. Following the flare-ups at Sanjauli, Shimla and Mandi, the situation has aggravated and started affecting other areas of the state. A report by Aayush Goel
Otherwise, a quaint hill station in Himachal Pradesh, Shimla is on the boil and is currently making it to national headlines for all the wrong reasons. The city is at the center of the raging communal row which now has spread across multiple regions in the state. Following a heated dispute in Sanjauli, Shimla and Mandi, the situation has intensified with protests spreading to other areas threatening to engulf the entire Himachal Pradesh.
Following Sanjauli and Mandi, protests have erupted in Sunni, Kullu, Bilaspur, and Paonta Sahib in Sirmaur district. Hindu organizations are calling for verifying people arriving from other states and increasing monitoring of their activities. A protest in Shimla on September 11 turned violent as demonstrators attempted to breach barricades surrounding a disputed (since 14 years) mosque site in Sanjauli. The situation escalated with stone-pelting and police use of water cannons and batons, resulting in injuries to six police personnel and four protesters. Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu has urged citizens to maintain peace and refrain from making provocative statements. He emphasised that the state respects all religions and that no one should take the law into their own hands.
The incident that has left the residents scarred and brought all political parties to one table for peace restoration has raised an alarm. “Peace is non-negotiable in the state. It was a small fight between vendors which has turned into communal tension. All political parties in the state are on the same page that individuals of any religion should not face restrictions. However, actions must be carried out lawfully, and no statement should incite or harm religious sentiments,” said Himachal CM Sukhu. A street vendor policy for the state is on the cards in the aftermath of the incident.
While Congress CM Sukhu termed the protests against a four-story mosque in Sanjauli in Shimla as a ‘local dispute’, BJP MLA from the area, Randhir Sharma demanded that the entire structure should be sealed if it was illegal.
“We demand the sealing of the entire structure until the final verdict is delivered by the municipal commissioner’s court in Shimla where the matter is listed for October 5. There is anger among the people regarding the mosque, which was constructed illegally. The issue at hand concerns the illegal structure”, said Sharma.
The mosque in question stands downhill from Sanjauli market en route to Kufri. The ground floor was constructed in 1960, and three other floors were added in 2010.
The Sanjauli incident is the first such flare-up in the state capital in recent history and was reportedly triggered by a squabble at a barber shop. The incident took place around 8 kilometers away, in the village of Malyana on August 31.
Local shopkeeper Vikram Singh had an altercation with a barber shop owner, Gulnawaz. Police eventually picked up six persons, including Gulnawaz and two minors, for assaulting Vikram, but the seemingly local incident snowballed as allegations emerged that the accused had taken shelter at the mosque in question. The incident soon snowballed into a controversy over the legality of the mosque reportedly built around 1960, apprehensions of “outsiders” pouring into the state, and some political wrangling inside the Himachal Pradesh Assembly.
“Muslims have been residing here for ages but things are not the same anymore. Gulnawaz is not from Shimla, he migrated here and married a local Pahadi Hindu woman. He has got three more shops in the last decade and reportedly got his friends from other states to run these. After the fight they hid in the mosque and that’s where outsiders coming in and being sheltered by mosque narrative started and soon things became communal,” says Vikas Thapta, of Civil Society Sanjauli that has been mediating peace amongst residents.
The first protest around the mosque was on September 3 – two days after the assault. The next day Chopal’s BJP MLA Balbir Singh Verma, listed the communal tension in the area as a subject of discussion under Rule 62 in the Vidhan Sabha, where the monsoon session was underway.
Though the matter was listed by the BJP MLA, Congress minister Anirudh Singh supported the cause and spoke in favor. He received rousing applause from the entire house when he highlighted the need to defend the rights of the people of the state.
