Tension at UP Shahi mosque: police use tear gas, detain 10 people
text_fieldsSambhal: Tensions escalated before the Shahi mosque in Sambhal of Uttar Pradesh, where a second survey was underway, and police used tear gas and detained around ten people. It is claimed that there used to be a temple at the site before the mosque was built, PTI reported.
Police said that some people attempted to torch some motorcycles parked near the road.
Tension has been brewing in Sambhal after the Jama Masjid was surveyed last Tuesday as per a local court order. The survey order followed a petition that claimed that a Harihar temple was there at the mosque site.
According to the local administration, a second survey by an "Advocate Commissioner" as part of a court-ordered examination into the disputed site started around 7 am, and a crowd began gathering there.
"Some miscreants in the crowd pelted stones at the police team. The police used minor force and tear gas to bring the situation under control," Superintendent of Police Krishna Kumar Vishnoi said.
He said those who engaged in stone pelting and those who incited them will be identified and action taken against them.
Videos of youths throwing stones at police, purportedly near the site of the survey in Sambhal, have surfaced on the Internet.
A petitioner in the Sambhal mosque case, Supreme Court lawyer Vishnu Shankar Jain- who along with his father has represented the Hindu side of cases such as the Gyanvapi Mosque-Kashi Vishwanath temple dispute- has made the Central and Uttar Pradesh governments, the mosque committee and the district magistrate of Sambhal parties in the case.