A fresh confrontation has broken out in Varanasi between the railways and a mosque committee. In the middle of expansion work at Kashi station, the railway administration pasted a notice on the Ganj Shahida mosque, throwing the Muslim community into a flurry. The railways say the mosque stands on its land, and treating it as an encroachment, it has given one week to vacate the structure.
A Notice Answered With a Notice
The Anjuman Intazamia Masajid has hit back sharply at the move. The committee pasted its own separate notice on the main gate of the Ganj Shahida mosque, declaring the mosque to be the property of the Muslim community and dismissing the railways' notice as fake. The matter did not stop there, with the committee linking the entire episode to a possible breakdown of law and order.
What the Committee Says
Joint secretary Mohammad Sayyed Yasin laid out the committee's position and called the notice outright illegal. According to him, the notice carries no date, no signature and not even any railway logo. Yasin said it appears to him that if the railways too have pasted a notice in this manner, then the railways itself is trying to disturb law and order.
Yasin further claimed that the case referred to in the notice has nothing to do with this matter at all. He said that case concerned land lying to the east of the mosque, and that the Anjuman Intazamia had itself filed that case at the time.
Pointing to an 1880 Map
The committee claims the railways has filed an affidavit in court admitting that the mosque is the property of Muslims. The Anjuman says it will now challenge exactly this point in court. To back its case, the committee is citing an 1880 map in which the mosque is clearly visible. Its argument is that there was no railway presence there in that era.
The Crux of the Dispute
Kashi station in Varanasi is being expanded, and the Ganj Shahida mosque, built on railway land, falls within the scope of this expansion plan, which is why the railway administration has labelled it an encroachment. The railways has pasted the notice on the mosque seeking its removal within a week, while the mosque committee, calling it its own property, is preparing to take the legal route.
