The mosque dispute that gripped Himachal Pradesh's capital is far from over. Months after the Sanjauli mosque row, a court has now ordered a wall inside another mosque complex in Shimla to come down for being illegally built.
What the Balugunj mosque wall case is about
The Municipal Corporation Commissioner's court has ruled that a wall built inside the mosque complex in Shimla's Balugunj area is illegal and must be demolished. The case has been pending in Commissioner Sachin Kanwal's court since 2013, meaning the verdict has come nearly twelve years later. Corporation officials say the wall of old toilets on the site was rebuilt without permission, and the new wall ended up roughly one and a half to two feet beyond the earlier boundary. The mosque side argued that the construction was done purely for convenience and claimed ownership rights over the land.
Six old cases decided in a single day
On Saturday, the Commissioner's court had twenty pending illegal construction cases before it, and it ruled on six of them together. Apart from the Balugunj mosque, the list included construction disputes in New Shimla, Khalini, Panthaghati and Flowerdale. That spread shows illegal construction in Shimla is not confined to one community or neighbourhood, but a citywide problem the corporation is now working through case by case.
Hindu organisations renew their campaign
Following the order, Hindu organisations have once again raised the issue. They claim they had flagged the Balugunj mosque earlier as well, and argue that Balugunj is not the only site, several other mosques in Shimla, according to them, have also come up illegally. The mosque committee, meanwhile, has not made clear whether it will challenge the order in a district court or have the wall removed on its own. For now, the corporation's action is limited strictly to the disputed wall, there is no order to demolish the mosque as a whole.
The Sanjauli mosque dispute that started it all
The roots of Shimla's mosque debate lie in the Sanjauli case. Local residents had raised objections with the municipal corporation back in 2010, but the matter remained stuck in the corporation's court for years, going through roughly fifty hearings. On 5 October 2024, the Commissioner's court finally declared the mosque's upper three floors illegal and ordered them demolished. That period saw large protests in Shimla over the dispute, turning it into a talking point across Himachal Pradesh. The matter did not end there, on 3 May 2025, the Commissioner's court, hearing the case further, declared the entire mosque structure illegal and ordered its demolition. The dispute then moved to the district court and the High Court. In October 2025, the district court upheld the corporation's push to tear down the illegal portion, while in December 2025, the High Court directed that the status quo be maintained on the mosque's ground floor and first floor.
