Four days after the Sambhal violence, authorities have sprung the claim of a mob invasion against the Jama Masjid surveyors during their first visit on November 19, obliquely trying to buttress their claim that Sunday’s mayhem resulted from a mob provoking police and not vice versa.

Four people were killed and scores injured on Sunday morning when a mob clashed with the police during a survey of the mosque, ordered by a court on a petition that claimed it had been built after demolishing a temple during Mughal emperor Babur’s rule.

While local people and Opposition parties have alleged the police fired on peaceful protesters, the administration has alleged the mob not just attacked the police but two groups within it fired on each other, causing the deaths.

On Thursday, Sambhal district magistrate Rajendra Pensiya claimed that five days before the violence, when the court-appointed commission made its first visit to the Jama Masjid hours after the court order, a mob of 150 barged into the shrine and prevented the team completing the survey.

“While the court commissioner along with his team was inside the mosque to survey the place (on November 19) and the security personnel were outside, about 150 people made their way inside,” he told reporters.

“Since it was getting dark, the team decided to return. This was why they decided to visit the mosque again on November 24 (Sunday).”

Pensiya didn’t explain why he hadn’t revealed this before, or why the police had allowed the mob to enter the mosque on November 19. It also remains unanswered why the police haven’t since acted against these 150 people.

The lapse appears even more remarkable in the light of a claim Pensiya made to reporters: that he and superintendent of police (SP) Krishna Kumar had accompanied the surveyors on November 19 and stood outside the mosque.

The duo’s roles have already come under the scanner following allegations by local residents and Samajwadi Party leaders that a group of people accompanying the surveyors on Sunday had kept up a chant of “Jai Shri Ram” to provoke local Muslims. Both the DM and the SP had accompanied the surveyors on Sunday, too, and Opposition parties have sought punishment for them for allowing the chanting.

“The DM, SP, the accused policemen, members of the commission and those chanting slogans should be arrested for rioting or instigation,” Samajwadi president Akhilesh Yadav, who had earlier posted a video of the purported slogan-chanting, said on Thursday.

He claimed the police had fired on the mob from illegal weapons and killed four people.

The post-mortem reports, which will establish whether the fatal bullets were fired from service weapons, have not been made public. However, the administration claims that two groups that had been fighting over the control of the mosque had fired at each other with country-made guns, causing the four deaths.

Twenty-seven people have been arrested for Sunday’s violence. The police also claim to have retrieved the pictures of 250 alleged rioters that will be displayed across Sambhal town.

With most of the faces unclear because the pictures have been extracted from CCTVs and drone cameras, the police have appealed to the people to help identify them.

“We will circulate these pictures on social media and also display them across the city. We appeal to the people to help us identify them. Those who help us will be rewarded and their identity kept secret,” SP Kumar said.

Pensiya said: “We are assessing the damage caused by these rioters, and the process of recovery against them will start once they have been identified.”

He denied that the mosque management had not been informed before the survey started. “Jafar Ali, head of the (mosque) management committee, was there in the mosque during the survey on both days,” he said.

Plea in SC

The management committee of Sambhal’s Jama Masjid moved the Supreme Court on Thursday challenging the November 19 order of a district court that directed a survey of the mosque. The apex court will hear the plea on Friday.