Civic authorities in the south India city of Mysuru on Saturday removed two domes from a bus stop, twelve days after a local Bharatiya Janata Party MP claimed that the structures looked like a mosque, The Indian Express reported.
Also called as Mysore, the city is located in the country's southwestern Karnataka state.
The domes were located on the Nanjangud/Ooty National Highway bus stop. The earlier design had three domes that were painted golden. Now, only the central dome has been retained and painted red.
n November 14, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Mysuru-Kodagu constituency Pratap Simha had told authorities to demolish the structures within three days, failing which he would bring them down himself with a bulldozer.
However, BJP MLA SA Ramadass had claimed that the domes were modelled on the Mysuru Palace and were designed to conserve the city's heritage. Ramadass is the MLA from the Krishnaraja Assembly constituency, within which the bus stop is located.
On Sunday, Simha thanked Ramadass for getting the dome-like structures removed, The Times of India reported. “If there is a big dome in the middle and two smaller domes next to each other, it is a mosque,” he said. “Thanks to the DC [Deputy Commissioner] who asked for time and kept his word and to Ramdas ji who understood the reality and bowed to the public opinion.”
Meanwhile, Ramadass said that unnecessary communalisation of the matter had hurt him, according to The Indian Express.
On November 15, the National Highways Authority of India had directed the Mysuru City Corporation to demolish the dome-like structures, claiming that they had been constructed in an unauthorised manner.
The authority had mentioned “unauthorised occupation” as reason for the demolition order, but had not provided details about any sort of encroachment. Instead, the notice claimed that the structures had been constructed to achieve “controversial kind of issues”, and that they had led to “communal issues”.
A report released by the US inn June said attacks on members of religious minority communities, including killings, assaults, and intimidation, had occurred throughout last year in India. These included cow vigilantism - assaults on non-Hindus for allegedly slaughtering cows or trading in beef.
Most Hindus, who account for about 80% of India's 1.35 billion people, consider cows sacred. Many states ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist party have enacted laws or toughened old ones against slaughtering cows.
The defining credo of Modi's BJP since 1989 has been "Hindutva," a political ideology that promotes the "values" of the Hindu religion as being the cornerstone of Indian society and culture.
Some states ruled by the BJP have used bulldozers to demolish the homes and shops of alleged Muslim protesters, a move decried as a form of collective punishment.
Hindu groups have also laid claim to a number of Islamic sites that they say were built atop temples during Muslim rule.
The BJP, however, has consistently denied that it discriminates against Muslims.
Disputes between religious communities in India over places of worship have flared ever since the country won independence from British rule in 1947, but they have become more common in recent years. Muslims make up around 13% of India's population.
