Mosque razed in BJP-ruled Indian state, Muslim body to move court

Residents in Uttar Pradesh’s Barabanki district accuse local administration of demolishing a 100-year-old mosque.

Officials in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh have allegedly bulldozed an old mosque, triggering anger and anguish among the Muslim minority, with a prominent community organisation saying it will approach the high court over the matter. The Ghareeb Nawaz Al Maroof Mosque, which residents in the state’s Barabanki district say was nearly 100 years old, was demolished on Monday evening by the local administration after hundreds of policemen surrounded the area and halted the movement of people to prevent any protest. Since 2017, Uttar Pradesh – India’s most populous state with nearly 220 million residents, almost one-fifth of them Muslim – is governed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with a controversial saffron-robed monk Yogi Adityanath, known for his anti-Muslim hate speech, as the state’s chief minister.