Published Dec 22, 2022 | 12:27 AM ⚊ Updated Dec 22, 2022 | 12:28 AM
A portion of the Dargha that was demolished in Hubballi
The Hubballi-Dharwad Municipal Corporation (HDMC) took up demolition work at the Hazrat Sayed Mahmood Shah Quadri Dargah at Bairidevarkoppa in Hubballi on Wednesday, 21 December.
Congress MLA Abbayya Prasad said the action in his Assembly constituency was a BJP ploy to garner communal attention and destroy the peace among Hindus and Muslims.
He claimed the saffron party — which is in power in Karnataka — was doing this to cover up its corruption and developmental failures.
Prasad, who visited the spot, asked reporters if they had witnessed any traffic restrictions due to the presence of the Dargah there.
“The roads are quite big and the reason they [the authorities] are fighting in the court is that a part of the Dargah’s structure was obstructing traffic movement. They could have built a flyover to avoid the demolition of the Dargah like that of the Siddappaji temple in Unkal, where a flyover was built in front of the temple to save it, but the government — for reasons best known to them — is not showing interest in building the flyover,” the MLA told reporters.
Hazrat Sayed Mahmood Shah Quadri Dargah at Bairidevarkoppa in Hubballi. (Supplied)
Tensed moments prevailed in and around Bairidevarkoppa after the local municipal corporation decided to demolish a portion of the Hazrat Sayed Mahmood Shah Quadri Dargah for developmental work based on a high court order to partially demolish the religious precinct.
The decision was taken by the HDMC on Wednesday after the Karnataka High Court vacated the stay order obtained by the Dargah caretakers, who have now appealed for peace and said that they would challenge the order at a double-bench court.
Cops block traffic on the road near Dargah in Hubballi
According to sources from the HDMC, a small portion of the Dargah encroached on the Hubballi-Dharwad Bus Rapid Transit System (HDBRTS) corridor near Bhairidevarakoppa in Hubballi, and hence needed to be demolished for the development work to be carried out.
Hundreds of policemen, including armed personnel from the Rapid Action Force (RAF), were deployed since early in the morning on Wednesday.
The Hubballi-Dharwad city police imposed Section 144 across Bhairidevarakoppa to maintain law and order, and the traffic movement was also diverted and redirected via the APMC market and Maykar colony, a senior police officer said.
“No one would raise an objection if a religious structure — like a portion of a mosque — encroached upon public property and was therefore demolished. However, according to the Dargah tradition, this place is where a religious head is buried, and it is considered a sacred place by Muslims,” MLA Prasad said.
Meanwhile, the Congress district-level president Altaph Hallur said the HDBRTS corridor’s width was less than 30 feet in some areas, and that he could not understand why the HDMC was planning to increase the width beyond 45 feet near the Dargah.
Senior Congress leader Ramalinga Reddy told South First that the state government last year passed a bill to protect religious structures, and the law was for everyone and could not be bent for some religions and not for others.
Meanwhile, in the heated Assembly session being held in Belagavi, Hubballi MLA Arvind Bellad raked up the issue.
He took to Twitter to write:
13 temples & a church were demolished for road widening in Bairikoppa of Hubballi-Dharwad.But a dargah was left untouched by Congress govt for appeasement politics
Today,I responded to the question of Mr Siddaramaiah regarding the permission from court for the removal of dargah pic.twitter.com/wPQ5gdEixP
— Arvind Bellad (@BelladArvind) December 21, 2022
When BJP spokesperson Mahesh G was asked why the dargah did not fall under the bill that protects religious structures, he told South First: “That is an illegal structure, and there is no way it could be considered a religious structure. And this is not a move of the government. It was decided by the court and was carried out on the court’s direction. The law of the land will prevail.”
He added: “If one person dies and everyone starts building a dargah for him, all the places in this country will be filled with dargahs.”
