“If our judiciary is working this quickly, then why are five crore cases pending?” - Local Cleric
I am currently at the collectorate in Saharanpur, where the mosque that was demolished stands. As for the mosque's side, they claim it was built in 1911 and even have the electricity bills to prove it. Many questions are being raised about this, including why such a step was taken in such a rush. My job is to stir up trouble. No, my job is not to stir up trouble. I am fighting this legal battle firmly, we will fight it strongly, and God willing , we will win. If our judiciary is working at such speed, then why are 50 million cases pending? If the Central Government admits that this property belongs to the mosque. This is the property. That is why the lease happened. I am saying, if they didn't acknowledge it as a mosque, how could it have been leased? The mosque has been completely leveled, and its debris has been picked up and dumped here. Look, our hearts are deeply hurt by this, and we want this mosque back. At this rate, we might start saying tear down that temple, or tear down that, just like they tore down this mosque. Our country was called the 'Golden Bird ' because we Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians would all sit on one platform and eat together. They only want to make Dalits and Muslims fight; there is oppression behind them, while nothing happens to other castes. Don't just talk about Muslims; anyone of any religion who loves justice is ashamed of the current situation. I am currently at the collectorate in Saharanpur, where the mosque that was demolished stands. You can see the site of the mosque behind me. Until a few days ago, it was allowed to go there and report. But for now, barricading has been set up here. I should tell you that this dispute began on February 10th when a Bajrang Dal leader claimed this mosque was built by encroaching on land. Meaning, it was declared illegal and unauthorized. Ever since then, we have seen this dispute escalate, and now, the mosque has been demolished. As for the mosque's side, they claim it was built in 1911 and even have the electricity bills to prove it. They also state that they were not even given time to file a writ in the High Court. Although they had a period of 22 days available to approach the Allahabad High Court. The mosque was bulldozed even before that. All kinds of questions are being raised about this, including why such a step was taken in such a hurry, and when the mosque side claims they have all the papers, why were they not given time to present them? There is no doubt that The grief and shock felt by all Muslims is unparalleled. But at the same time, it is commendable that they have shown immense patience and restraint. A Muslim can give their life. But they cannot watch their place of worship being demolished. Look, if a mosque is martyred, there will certainly be pain. Hmm. And the way it has been martyred is completely illegal. And they have run a bulldozer over the entire constitution because even the government admits that the mosque is there. Hmm. The court also acknowledges it; if they did not consider it a mosque, then why would there be an eviction notice? Then why would there be an eviction at all? So it is definitely a mosque, it is definitely in use. The land documents scream out that the land is centuries old and the owners of the land are still...Forget about yesterday, leave aside the issue of possession; the owners of the land today are still Yakub Khan and Wahid Khan. I have the Khasra (land record) of 1324 Fasli in front of me. In which the entry at Khasra number 539 explicitly states "Masjid Collectory". So 1324 Fasli means this is a document from 1917, and in the 1917 document " Masjid Collectory" is written, so this document itself proves that the mosque has existed since before 1917. And when this mosque was built before 1917, and after that many governments changed, and officers kept coming, it means this is not an illegal mosque. This is a consented mosque. And when it is not illegal, then any order for demolition, eviction, or whatever, is meant to be against what is illegal. This is a plot of 84 bighas within which the entire Collectorate is located. Hmm. The Collectorate is also built on occupied land. The Collectorate is also built by occupying land. You are saying the opposite. I am not saying the opposite. These papers are speaking. Okay. These are the papers. They exist even today. The place where the Collectorate is, it expanded later. Earlier, the place where that mosque is built was smaller. It is possible that the time the mosque was built, the Collectorate Court was established after that, but even if it was earlier, the Collectorate Court was in a small area. The possibility is that it was outside that complex where the mosque was established, and with development, the entire corridor was enclosed, and after that, the mosque came into the Collectorate Court complex. It came inside. Okay. So, this is completely illegal. This mosque was old, so it was covered under the 1991 Act. The Places of Worship Act, it was covered under that. The structure existed since before 1947. Secondly, it is covered under the Limitation Act. That since 1960, the Government of India had been paying rent for it, treating it as the owner. The Telecommunications Department. This is covered under Waqf by User. The new Act , the new Act will not apply to the old one. Because prayers were being held inside it continuously. A part of the mosque, a post office, was taken on lease. And from the Central Government's side, meaning the Central Government, the postmaster at that time , whoever the head was, they and the mosque's mutawalli had a proper lease deed. Hmm. So if the Central Government acknowledges that this property belongs to the mosque. This property belongs to the Waqf. That is why the lease happened. Hmm. If they did not consider it the mosque's property, then how would the lease happen? It is being said that you are giving a bill from 1911. But electricity in Saharanpur only came in 1912. In 1906. Yes. Electricity came to Saharanpur in 1906, and this is a bill taken from the electricity department's website. Then other old papers, just as you just mentioned. The electricity bills and all the rest of the record. All of them prove that it is an old mosque. Hmm, hmm. And I have been practicing for 46 years . Before that, it was my father. My father's registration was most probably from '51-'52. In this same mosque, it has been a very old mosque since even before them. The people from before them all tell the same thing. They have been offering prayers. They have been offering prayers there. Hmm, right now where I am standing, you might find it a bit strange what I have in my hand? Why am I standing here holding a brick? If you look closely at this, 1911 is written on it, and the debris you see behind me is from the very same mosque that was located in the collectorate and was demolished in a hurry at 5:00 AM. The claim made by the mosque committee is that this mosque was built in 1911; look, I have the proof in my hand. I just arrived here, and I picked up this brick from right here. 1911 is written on this brick, and the people present here say that if I had arrived a little earlier, perhaps bricks from 1909 and 1906 would have been present here too. Come, I want to show you this debris, you can see it. Here, you will see curtains, clothes, and mats scattered about. It is said that these are all the belongings and clothes of the Imam who lived at the mosque with his family. Just imagine, they were not even allowed to retrieve their clothes from the mosque. Meaning, they were not even allowed to take their belongings. Whereas, full assurances were given that the mosque was only being sealed for now. It would not be bulldozed. All these things were said, and when people believed these assurances, around 5:00 AM, this mosque was bulldozed, and it was razed in such a way that you won't even find a trace of it left. The mosque has been completely leveled, and its debris was picked up and dumped here. There is a crowd of people here constantly. People are picking up bricks from here and taking them away. In a way, they are keeping them in their homes as a memory. They are pained that their mosque has been martyred. It is also being said that the Siparas and other items were picked up from there and buried. You can see the clothes and other things, and people are arriving in a continuous stream; I would ask the cameraman to show how people are constantly pouring in, and their numbers are only increasing. We are destroying our own dignity. We have finished the brotherhood among Muslims ourselves. That is why these atrocities are happening to us. We We should all fix ourselves. Allah has protected the Kaaba. All mosques belong to Allah; Allah himself will protect them. Do you think this is also happening because of the upcoming elections? Absolutely. That is the real reason. Look, our hearts are deeply hurt by this, and this mosque is a matter of truth for us. This happened because of the elections, and just because someone says they've come to demolish this mosque, doesn't mean they can just break it. Hmm. If we start saying, "break this temple, break that," then...Would they just go and break temples like that? Secondly, today they demolished this mosque, and other mosques have also been spotted. Hmm. This should not happen. Atul Bhai, tell me, do you feel there is an attempt to create Hindu-Muslim divide again for the upcoming elections? By demolishing this mosque? Their intention was that after demolishing this mosque, they wanted to provoke the Muslims. It is clearly their intent. Nothing else. They wanted Muslims to get provoked, to fight and quarrel among themselves, while they enjoy the outcome. They will easily achieve their goal this way. Why was our country called the 'Golden Bird'? Because we Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians used to sit on the same platform and eat together. Before this government, there was no discrimination here regarding whether someone was a Hindu or a Muslim. We used to sit together at weddings and feasts and eat together. We used to sit together, eat together, and feed one another. But ever since this government came to power, a narrative has been formed that, " Brother, he is a Hindu, he is a Muslim. " They want to sow discord among you to serve their own interests. Do you think there is also an attempt to silence Muslims by scaring them like this? It is absolutely an attempt to silence them, so that Muslims get scared and stay inside their homes. We follow the law. But the law is looking at only one side. Hmm. It is just looking at one side. Dictatorship. They are leaving us alone. This doesn't belong to anyone like that . Hmm. They think all this land has been donated. Both courts, they are both donated. Hmm. And they just say, "demolish this, demolish someone's mosque, do whatever. " What will be proven by doing this? They are doing their job by making Hindus and Muslims fight each other. They want to make Dalits and Muslims fight. Crimes are committed against them, and no one else is being oppressed because of their caste. And besides this, what arrow did they have? They had the Babri Masjid issue. He had been acquitted. The Muslims had resigned themselves to the fact that the mosque is God's house. God will look after it now, but they could not even bear this. They only care about their own seats of power. Apart from this, they have nothing. The mosque is gone. Perhaps they are trying to console themselves with the pile of rubble, or maybe they are grieving by looking at it. People are also resentful. Nadeem Sahab , there is anger too. They are angry with the political leaders. They are also resentful towards their religious leaders. They say that the intensity needed to save the mosque, the leadership that should have been shown, was completely absent. Like other fanatic organizations that have been formed. I cannot form one like that. Hmm. Because I believe in the Constitution, because I believe in our law, and if that trust is broken...Hmm. ...then will I helplessly keep watching just as my mosque was martyred in the collectorate court, even though very strong evidence exists? The speed, the haste, the pace with which the collectorate decided the mosque issue. If our judiciary is working at this speed, then why are 50 million cases pending? And then people said that leaders are placed under house arrest, so would a leader just sit at home and watch this spectacle? Look, I was not placed under house arrest. Hmm. Nor did I get detained. I spoke to the District Magistrate at night, we spoke twice. I felt they were going to demolish it. We cannot stop them with sticks and batons. You could not stop them by facing the police with sticks and batons. If I had stood there, it would have meant I brought a crowd of 2000, and shots would have been fired. The outcome would have been the same anyway. The result would have been the same. But the city would have gone up in flames. Is my job to set things on fire ? No. My job is not to set things on fire. I am fighting this battle; this is a legal battle, and I am fighting it strongly. Whether or not to issue an order, that has gone to the High Court. The High Court will see if it is illegal or legal, or whatever, that is their matter. But the position as of now makes two things quite evident. They are absolutely clear: firstly, there was no order for demolition at all. The procedure for eviction is that you are given 30 days to vacate whatever is on the premises. After that , a notice is issued, and if an order for demolition is subsequently passed, it must be a specific order, and only then can demolition take place. So, this entire action that has taken place is completely illegal. It is an illegal action and cannot be justified in any way, and what are your expectations from the Allahabad High Court? Look, I am 100%sure we will get justice from the High Court, because when a judge sits with an open mind and reviews the files, they will be reprimanded and fined. The Allahabad High Court has already penalized the PDA. Hmm. The Allahabad High Court imposed a fine of ₹ 42 lakh on the Prayagraj Development Authority for similar demolition actions. Hmm. Justice means that if a fair and justified approach is taken regarding the evidence and witnesses, then I can say with confidence that the mosque will be rebuilt there. Hmm. But that fair approach must come first. That fair approach, that justice must prevail; they have harassed Muslims so much right now, and their goal is to make you look troubled. This is indeed their motive. But I keep saying that 250 million people cannot be sidelined. You cannot remove 250 million people from the country. Do not just talk about Muslims. Hmm. Every person, regardless of the religion they follow, who values justice, is ashamed of these circumstances right now. This country has a code, a law, a Constitution that has been framed for it. If this country is not governed by that law and that Constitution, is it loyalty to the country and the Constitution, or is it betrayal? After the bulldozer destroyed this mosque, if you go to different areas of Saharanpur city, you will notice a strange silence . People are in pain, angry, and grieving, but they are unable to say much openly. They still say that they have faith in the courts, they have faith in the law of this country, they have faith in the Constitution of this country, and they have faith in the Almighty that they will surely get justice. A writ has been filed in the Allahabad High Court, and they now feel that they will get justice from the Allahabad High Court and their mosque will surely be rebuilt exactly where it stood. And as I speak to you, although I am present in Saharanpur, I must tell you that right now a notice has been pasted on the Mustafa Mosque in Moradabad as well, and documents are being demanded there too. So now, after one mosque, it is the turn of another —that is, Moradabad's Mustafa Mosque —and the question remains: how many more mosques will be asked for their documents?
Companion article
Before sunrise on a February morning, a mosque standing inside the grounds of the Saharanpur collectorate in western Uttar Pradesh was pulled down by bulldozers. Within hours its debris had been gathered and dumped nearby, where residents came in a steady stream to pick bricks out of the rubble and carry them home as keepsakes. Among them was a broken brick stamped with the year 1911 — offered, on camera, as evidence of just how old the structure was. The demolition has since become a dispute not chiefly about sentiment but about paperwork: what the government's own records say about a plot of land inside one of its own administrative complexes, and whether the mosque that stood on it for more than a century was ever, in law, illegal at all.
The controversy traces back to February 10, when a leader of the Bajrang Dal, a Hindu nationalist organisation, alleged that the mosque had been built by encroaching on government land and was therefore illegal and unauthorised. That claim set off weeks of escalating tension in Saharanpur, culminating in the demolition of the structure. The mosque management's account is starkly different: they say the mosque dates to 1911, and point to electricity bills and other old records to support the claim. They also say they were denied a fair chance to contest the matter in court — even though, by their own account, a 22-day window existed for them to approach the Allahabad High Court, the mosque was bulldozed before that period had run its course.
The questions this sequence raises are procedural as much as historical: why did the administration move with such speed on a single disputed structure when, as one voice in the report to the collectorate observes, the wider judicial system carries a backlog of roughly fifty million pending cases? And if the mosque side maintains it holds documentary proof of the structure's antiquity, why was it not given the opportunity to produce that proof before the bulldozers arrived?
The strongest documentary claim made in support of the mosque is not the 1911 electricity bill but a much older revenue record. A khasra — the local land-record register that catalogues individual plots, their boundaries and their designated use — from 1324 Fasli, corresponding to 1917 in the Gregorian calendar, is cited as showing that plot number 539 is explicitly entered as "Masjid Collectory": a mosque within the collectorate. If that entry is accurate, it establishes that a mosque existed on the site at least seven years before the earliest electricity bill offered as evidence, and predates the structure by definition, since a government surveyor would only record a mosque that was already standing at the time of the survey.
The argument built on this record is that a structure entered in an official government register in 1917, surviving through repeated changes of government and successive collectorate officers since, cannot reasonably be characterised as an illegal or unauthorised encroachment now. It is, in this framing, a "consented" structure — one whose presence the state itself has repeatedly acknowledged over more than a century — and any demolition or eviction order is supposed to apply to what is illegal, not to what the government's own records confirm was always there.
There is a related claim about who legally holds the surrounding land. According to the report, current land records still list the plot's owners as Yakub Khan and Wahid Khan, regardless of who has physically possessed or used the site in recent years. The larger plot on which the collectorate itself sits is described as roughly 84 bighas, and the report notes a striking irony: the collectorate complex was also, at various points, built by encroaching onto land, and its boundaries reportedly expanded over time to eventually enclose ground that had originally lain outside the court complex — including, on this account, the area where the mosque stood before the mosque itself was drawn inside the collectorate's perimeter.
Beyond the khasra entry, mosque representatives point to three separate legal protections they say should have shielded the structure. The first is the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which freezes the religious character of places of worship as they existed on August 15, 1947, and bars converting or altering that character. Because the structure is said to have existed well before 1947, this Act is cited as applying directly to it.
The second is the Limitation Act, invoked here through a specific and unusual piece of evidence: since 1960, a government department — described in the report as the telecommunications department, operating a post office on part of the mosque premises — had been paying rent for the space, treating the mosque's caretaker, or mutawalli, as the legal owner. A lease deed is said to have existed between the postmaster of the day, representing the central government, and the mosque's mutawalli. The argument advanced is a simple one: an arm of the government does not sign a lease and pay rent to occupy a structure unless it accepts that the structure belongs to whoever it is paying. If the central government's own conduct treated the mosque as the rightful owner of that land for over six decades, that undercuts any later claim that the land was never legitimately the mosque's to hold.
The third protection cited is "Waqf by User" — a doctrine under Muslim personal law and, historically, waqf legislation, under which land that has been used continuously for religious purposes, such as regular prayer, can acquire the legal status of a waqf (a religious endowment) through that sustained use alone, even without a formal deed of dedication. Because prayers are said to have continued at the mosque without interruption, this argument holds that any newer law governing waqf registration should not retroactively strip a long-established structure of a status it had already acquired by use.
Separate from the historical and legal claims about the mosque's status, a sharper procedural objection is raised about how the demolition itself was carried out. Indian administrative procedure for evicting an occupant from public land typically requires a notice period — described here as 30 days — during which the occupant must vacate. Only after that period, and only through a specific, subsequent order, can a demolition follow. According to the account given to the collectorate, no such specific demolition order was ever issued; what happened, instead, was a rushed pre-dawn action that skipped the sequence the law itself lays down. On this reading, even setting aside every argument about the mosque's age or legal status, the manner of the demolition was independently unlawful.
Residents and mosque officials also describe assurances given shortly before the demolition: that the mosque was merely being sealed, not destroyed, and that people would later be allowed to retrieve belongings from inside — prayer mats, curtains, clothing, and the personal effects of the imam, who reportedly lived at the mosque with his family. Those assurances, according to the account, were not honoured. Around 5 a.m., the structure was bulldozed and levelled so thoroughly that little trace of it remained, and the imam's family's belongings were left buried in the rubble alongside copies of the Quran and other religious materials, which were reportedly recovered and buried separately as a mark of respect.
A writ petition has been filed in the Allahabad High Court, and those close to the case express confidence that a court reviewing the underlying paperwork — the 1917 khasra entry, the post-1960 lease, the absence of a demolition order — will rule in the mosque's favour. That confidence is bolstered by a recent precedent: the Allahabad High Court fined the Prayagraj Development Authority ₹42 lakh over a similar pattern of demolition actions found to have bypassed due process. Supporters of the mosque argue that if the same standard of scrutiny is applied here, the demolition will be found not merely regrettable but unlawful — and that, in the words offered to the collectorate, a fair and evidence-based hearing could ultimately see the mosque rebuilt on the same site.
The legal representative interviewed in the report — who says he has practised law for 46 years, following his father before him, and has represented this mosque for decades — was careful to frame the response as strictly legal rather than confrontational. He said he was neither placed under house arrest nor detained on the night of the demolition, but chose not to physically resist the bulldozers with a crowd of supporters, reasoning that doing so risked violence and bloodshed without changing the outcome. "My job is not to set things on fire," he said. "I am fighting this battle; this is a legal battle, and I am fighting it strongly."
The demolition has been read locally through the lens of communal politics and an approaching election cycle. Several residents and local figures quoted in the report describe the action as a deliberate attempt to provoke a reaction from the Muslim community, framing it as a strategy designed to manufacture Hindu-Muslim discord for electoral gain while diverting attention from other grievances — one speaker specifically linked it to broader friction between Dalit and Muslim communities, arguing that both groups are being set against each other while the underlying causes of unrest go unaddressed.
Others voiced a more resigned frustration, noting that many Muslims had come to see the earlier resolution of the Babri Masjid dispute — decided by India's Supreme Court in 2019 — as a matter to be left to divine judgment rather than fought further, and expressed dismay that even that posture of restraint had not spared other mosques from similar treatment. The report also notes that the demolition is not an isolated episode: even as the Saharanpur case proceeds to the High Court, a notice has reportedly been pasted on the Mustafa Mosque in Moradabad, with authorities there too demanding documentary proof of its legal status — raising, in the report's own words, the question of how many more mosques will be asked to produce their papers.
What distinguishes the Saharanpur case from a purely political dispute is the specificity of the documentary record at its centre: a colonial-era khasra entry naming the plot as a mosque in 1917, a mid-twentieth-century government lease implying recognition of the mosque's ownership, and a demolition that, on the available account, proceeded without the formal order the law is said to require. Whether those records are sufficient to reverse what has already been physically levelled will now be decided by the Allahabad High Court — but the debris behind the barricades at the Saharanpur collectorate, and the bricks residents have carried away as keepsakes, are unlikely to wait quietly for that answer.
11:27Following the demolition of the mosque inside the Saharanpur Collectorate, Saharanpur MP Imran Masood discusses the legal battle surrounding the site, the documents cited by the mosque committee, and the questions being raised over the demolition process.
11:27Following the demolition of the mosque inside the Saharanpur Collectorate, Saharanpur MP Imran Masood discusses the legal battle surrounding the site, the documents cited by the mosque committee, and the questions being raised over the demolition process.
22:41In an exclusive interview with senior journalist Bushra Khanum, Saharanpur MP Imran Masood discusses the demolition of a mosque inside the Saharanpur Collectorate and the questions it has raised over law, equality and religious sites. Masood argues that the issue should be viewed through the lens…
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