The Supreme Court of India on Thursday halted the demolition drive in New Delhi’s Jahangirpuri for two weeks, Bar and Bench reported.
On Wednesday, the Bharatiya Janata Party-controlled (BJP) North Delhi Municipal Corporation razed the Jahangirpuri mosque and several shops, homes and other structures in the neighbourhood, mostly belonging to Muslims. The municipality claimed that those structures were built illegally.
The drive began four days after communal violence erupted in the locality when a Hindu religious procession armed with guns and swords passed a mosque.
The court intervened twice to halt the demolition drive. An hour after Chief Justice NV Ramana ordered municipal authorities to stop the demolitions and maintain the “status quo,” a bulldozer razed the entrance gate and stairs leading into a mosque in Jahangirpuri.
Senior advocate Dushyant Dave told a bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and BR Gavai on Thursday that the demolitions continued even after the Supreme Court stayed them.
The judges said that they will take a “serious view of the demolitions” that continued despite the court orders. They asked authorities to maintain the “status quo” and issued notice to all the petitioners in the case.
Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Muslim cleric’s body Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, also challenged the demolitions saying that encroachments are not limited to “A community and B community.”
Sibal submitted that “Muslims are being associated with encroachments,” Live Law reported.
Justice Rao then asked if any Hindu properties were razed in the drive.
However, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the New Delhi Municipal Council, said that the eviction drive had started in January, PTI reported. He added that a notice was issued before Wednesday’s demolition drive.
He also said that the allegations that only Muslims were being targeted were “factually incorrect.”
The solicitor general questioned why organizations instead of individuals harmed by the demolition drive were approaching the court.
The National Commission for Minorities will submit a report to the Central government on the communal violence that took place in Jahangirpuri on April 16 and seek necessary action, chairperson Syed Shahezadi said on Thursday, reported PTI.
The BJP’s New Delhi unit chief Adarsh Gupta on Thursday said that civic bodies in the city’s eastern and southern parts should also carry out demolition drives to “remove illegal encroachments by Bangladeshis and Rohingyas.”
Meanwhile, a BJP worker was shot dead outside his house in New Delhi’s Mayur Vihar area on Wednesday, ANI reported.
Jitu Choudhary, 42, was shot at least four times by unidentified people on a bike, according to the Hindustan Times.