A 200-year-old mosque in Varanasi was razed down on Tuesday night as authorities cleared land for the redevelopment of Kashi railway station into a multimodal transport hub.
The Ajgaib Shaheed Mosque, nestled in the area of Rajghat, falling within the alignment of the railway expansion project, was obliterated to rubble in the middle of the night on Tuesday amidst the extensive security, the locals told FoEJ Media.
Officials said the structure stood on railway land allotted for the station’s modernization and expansion. As per the account of the administration, a shrine was originally present at the location, and with time, additional structures, including the mosque and graveyard, were incorporated on the land.
However, locals say that the mosque had served as a place of worship for generations.
“This mosque was in use and prayers used to be offered there, but the case had been going on for a long time. Then the mosque committee lost the case, so demolition took place,” locals told FoEJ Media.
Furthermore, officials stated that a Hanuman temple built on the same railway land was also razed as part of the drive.
Officials also said that railway authorities issued several notices to the mosque management to ask them to vacate the land.
The move is linked to a project under the Kashi railway station to transform it into an integrated hub with facilities like that of the airport. The project aims to connect rail, road, metro, and water transport networks at one location and thereby improve passenger movement in the city.
According to the reports, to maintain law and order during the exercise, the administration had put additional security in the demolition site. The security arrangements were led by Joint Commissioner of Police Shiv Hari Meena, while five JCB machines and two excavators razed the structure down. Security was deployed until debris was cleared from the site. Authorities highlighted that the land-clearing exercise was imperative for the next phase of redevelopment at Kashi railway station.
A review of the area was also conducted before demolition by senior officials in the presence of DCP Kashi Gaurav Banswal, ADCP Vaibhav Bangar, ACP Vijay Pratap, and officers from different police stations.
The move was, however, slammed by politicians: “In the name of beautification and commercialization, Prime Minister Modi has ordered bulldozers to demolish centuries-old religious, cultural, and spiritual heritage at Manikarnika Ghat in Varanasi,” Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge posted on X.
“You have committed the crime of demolishing the rare ancient heritage of Manikarnika Ghat, which was described in the Gupta period and later restored by Lokmata Ahilyabai Holkar, under the pretext of renovation. Narendra Modi ji… You want to erase every historical heritage and simply affix your own nameplate,” he said.
