Nikhat Fatima | India Tomorrow
HYDERABAD, JULY 14—Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao has promised to rebuild the two mosques and a temple that were demolished to enable the construction of a new Secretariat building at the site of the 127-year-old Secretariat.
The two mosques-Masjid Dafaatir-e-Muatamadi and Masjid-e-Hashmi-and a temple-Nalla Pochamma-were in the premises of the Secretariat itself.
While Masjid-e-Hashmi was a very old built by the 7th Nizam of Hyderabad Mir Usman Ali Khan, Masjid Dafaatir-e-Muatamadi was built during the Congress rule at a cost of Rs. 2 crores.
The mosques and the temple were razed down when the work for construction of a new secretariat began on July 7 after permission from the High Court of Telangana on June 29.
The process of demolition began on midnight of July 7 itself by first closing all roads leading to the Secretariat and demolition of religious places took place in early morning hours. Seeing the religious structures as hindrances in the new plan, the authorities decided to demolish them with an aim to construct them at some other place. However, they did not consult Islamic scholars or religious leaders and demolished the mosques without even informing them. Before demolishing the mosques, the prayer mats and copies of the Holy Quran were shifted to some other place.
When the public learnt about the demolition, there was a furore and the public demanded the mosques to be reconstructed. Many religious leaders and political leaders condemned this incident.
MP Asaduddin Owaisi, president of AIMIM, threatened to launch a massive protest if the Government does not reconstruct the mosques at the same place.
Opposition leaders from the Congress also condemned the demolition with Mohammed Ali Shabbir, issuing a statement accusing Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao of hurting religious sentiments of both Hindus and Muslims. The Congress also said that this situation has become a ‘Babri Masjid-like issue’.
While the BJP has demanded that the temple be built at exactly the same spot, both the Congress and the BJP called the day as ‘Black Day’.
In a media statement, Muslim leaders said, “A mosque is the property of Allah the status of which can never be altered. This move has both shocked and enraged the Muslims as they had confidence in Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, and believed him to be secular”.
The Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee’s minorities wing even burnt an effigy of the CM to protest against the demolition of the mosques.
Design of the new Telangana Secretariat as per Vaastu
The Nalla Pochamma temple was situated in the middle of the secretariat complex near the A Block while Masjid Dafaatir-e-Muatamadi was situated adjacent to the C Block and Masjid-e-Hashmi was located near the D Block.
The Masjid-e-Hashmi is a very old mosque built by the 7th Nizam of Hyderabad Mir Usman Ali Khan. While constructing the Secretariat’s D Block when the state was united, the Andhra Pradesh government had also tried a lot to shift the mosque but after stiff opposition from Islamic scholars and Muslims, the construction was carried out leaving the mosque.
Both the Mosques were in use for prayers by Muslims working in the secretariat and also from the surrounding government offices. On Fridays even the general Muslims would come to offer ‘namaz’. However, during pandemic and lockdown, the mosques were not in use.
The CM has decided to construct a new Secretariat building as per the Vastu design demolishing the present Secretariat that has a 132-year-old history and where 16 Chief Ministers served their respective terms from this building keeping it as the administrative headquarters.
The Secretariat was built spread over an area of 25 acres (10 lakh square feet) in 1888 during the time of the sixth Nizam. It had 10 blocks as the governments kept expanding it.
The new Secretariat will cost around Rs 500 crore.
But the GHMC (Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation) Mayor Bonthu Ram Mohan, was defensive and said that razing religious structures is common for purposes of development and has been done by Narendra Modi when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat.
“The mayor comparing the demolition of religious structures by Narendra Modi when he was the CM to widen roads does not make sense. The religious places removed by Modi in Gandhinagar were all on footpaths and on the roadsides. But the mosques here were not on the roads, they were inside the secretariat complex. And one mosque was an ancient one”, said Misbah Adnan, a political analyst, adding, “Will the TRS Government now follow the same ideology of BJP?”
The CM, however, has expressed regret over the demolition of the mosques and the temple and has promised to build bigger mosque and temple.
“I came to know that, while demolishing the multi-storied old buildings, the temple and mosque adjacent to the old buildings were damaged due to fall of the debris on them. I felt sorry about the incident. It should not have happened. The government’s intention is to build a new complex by demolishing the old buildings without causing any damage to the temple or the mosque,” the CM clarified in an official statement released from his office.
He also said Telangana is a secular state and the incident happened unexpectedly. He has promised to hold a meeting with the temple and mosque organisers and construct the places of worship and hand it over to them.
Besides these three places of worship, there are three more small temples located in the Secretariat complex. Although the CM has promised to construct the temple and mosques that were razed, there is no mention of any Church at the site.
“If ours is a secular state, we find only temples in almost all government office buildings, government hospitals, even in some government run schools. New temples keep mushrooming even on the footpaths which are never demolished. But they demolished two mosques which were not causing any obstruction,” said a senior social activist not wishing to be named.
