Zia Ur Rehman, Samajwadi Party MP from Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal, allegedly made provocative statements and instigated people before violence broke out over the survey of a mosque, according to the FIR filed by local police. The Shahi Jama Masjid, dating back to the Mughal-era, is at the centre of a legal battle after some petitions claimed it was built on the site of a Hindu temple.
The FIR has been registered under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections relating to unlawful assembly, use of criminal force against a public servant, acts endangering the life of others, and promoting disharmony, besides laws linked to the destruction of private property. The FIR names Mr Rehman, local Samajwadi Party MLA Iqbal Mahmood’s son Sohail Iqbal and about 700-800 unidentified persons.
It says that around 9 am on Sunday, an armed mob approached the mosque with the intention to stop the survey, being conducted on a local court’s orders.
The FIR says that two days before the violence took place, Mr Rehman visited the mosque for namaz and made provocative statements soon after. It accused him of inciting the crowd and disrupting communal harmony for political gains.
On the day of the incident, Sohail Iqbal and others provoked the crowd, the FIR says. “The crowd was told ‘Zia Ur Rehman is with us’, ‘we are with you, we will protect you’ and ‘complete your goals’.”
The FIR says that the administrative officials and the police party asked the mob not to create obstacles in the survey, but the people who had gathered raised slogans, threw stones and vandalised police vehicles and private property. Several shops were set on fire and an unidentified shooter fired at Circle Officer Anuj Kumar Chaudhary with the intention to kill, it adds. The officer has suffered a bullet wound in his right leg.
Police have said they are using drone footage and CCTV cameras to identify the criminals and added that the stringent National Security Act may also be invoked.
The violence on Sunday has claimed four lives and sparked a massive political row, with Opposition leaders urging the Supreme Court to intervene.
Mr Rehman, who was in Delhi yesterday for the Parliament’s Winter Session, spoke to NDTV on the situation in his constituency. Holding the local police responsible for the violence, he said, “A murder case should be registered against them (police personnel) and action should be taken because they fired from private arms and not government arms. Muslims were targeted and killed as part of a conspiracy.”
Akhilesh Yadav, who leads Uttar Pradesh’s main opposition Samajwadi Party, has said the violence in Sambhal was a “riot by the government”.
“Our MP Zia Ur Rahman Barq was not even in Sambhal during the incident and despite that, a case was registered against him. From all the videos we have, we know it was a riot by the government,” said Mr Yadav, who also met Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla with his party’s MPs to raise the Sambhal issue.
