Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Friday said the authorities would demolish mazars that have come up on illegally-occupied land.
Mazar is mausoleum or shrine of a Muslim saint or notable Islamic leader.
“We will demolish illegal mazars in Uttarakhand. This is a new Uttarakhand. No one should even think about encroaching on land here, let alone doing it,” Dhami said in a tweet.
Dhami also said that the authorities had identified over a thousand illegal structures erected in the name of mazars and others.
“There are more than 1000 such places in this state where tombs have been made but no remains were being found under them,” Dhami said.
“We are not against anyone. But encroachments in the name of mazars or anything else will not be allowed. We will not let ‘land jihad’ prosper. We believe in the law. We will not allow anyone’s appeasement,” PTI quotes Dhami as saying.
Land jihad is another Hindu right-wing conspiracy theory that falsely alleges Muslims are occupying public lands by building religious structures or holding mass prayers on them.
He was speaking at an event in Nainital’s Kaladhungi.
Dhami also claimed the state government has taken measures to prevent forced conversions and implement the Uniform Civil Code (UCC). The Uttarakhand assembly recently approved an amendment bill to toughen the existing draconian anti-conversion law in the state. The bill proposes stricter punishment for forced conversions and defines religious conversion of two or more people as “mass conversion.”
