Namaz outside sealed mosque allegedly imperilled fragile peace, 13 students issued notices

The viral tableau of Hindu students forging a human cordon around Muslim peers offering namaz outside the Lal Baradari mosque on the Lucknow University campus, in defiance of its closure, convulsed public discourse on Tuesday and metastasised into a symbol-laden spectacle of interfaith solidarity and administrative unease.

The episode was followed by magistrate-issued notices ensnaring thirteen students — Hindu and Muslim alike — who were summoned and directed to execute a personal bond of Rs 500 and furnish two sureties of Rs 50,000 each, on the averment that their demonstration had engendered a communally inflamed climate and imperilled the fragile equilibrium of peace within the ostensibly secular precincts of the campus.

The notices were served after a report was submitted by Sub-Inspector Ashwini Kumar Mishra of Hasanganj Police Station, who contended that the offering of namaz outside the sealed structure had engendered a tense atmosphere and had carried within it the latent possibility of disturbing public tranquillity.

Invoking provisions under Sections 126, 130 and 135 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, the police sought preventive action, arguing that the protest demonstration and sloganeering near the Divyang Canteen had the potential to rupture communal concord.

Lal Baradari, a Mughal-era edifice which had once housed a bank and a canteen before falling into decrepitude and eventual abandonment around 2017–18, had recently been fenced off by the university administration in the presence of police personnel, ostensibly on grounds of structural fragility; yet students were said to have continued frequenting the premises despite entry restrictions.

According to the police report, the demonstrators had deliberately impeded construction activity at the site and had attempted to transform a public thoroughfare into a congregational space, thereby precipitating apprehensions of disorder.

Those named in the challan — including Prince Prakash, Ahmed Raza, Shubham Kharwar, Taukir Ghazi, Navneet Yadav and others — were directed to execute a personal bond of Rs 500 and furnish two sureties of Rs 50,000 each to guarantee the maintenance of peace for a year.

The Sub-Inspector had urged the magistrate to bind them down with the “heaviest possible amount”, underscoring what the authorities characterised as a pre-emptive necessity rather than a punitive measure.

The episode acquired a further layer of volatility when activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad assembled near the mosque precincts and chanted religious slogans, including recitations of the Hanuman Chalisa, while demanding a ritual “shuddhikaran” of the site where namaz had been offered.

Visuals circulating online showed police personnel intercepting marching groups and detaining several individuals as tensions simmered across the campus.

While one of the students named in the notice maintained that the human chain symbolised interfaith solidarity rather than provocation, the administration reiterated that its actions were calibrated to forestall communal conflagration.