The Yogi Adityanath government demolished a portion of the 185-year-old Noori Jama Masjid in Lalauli area of Fatehpur district on Tuesday alleging it encroached on a highway, three days before Allahabad High Court was to hear the mosque management’s objections.

The development comes at a time court petitions seeking the dislocation of over a dozen mosques and dargahs, on the ground that they were built after demolishing temples, has divided communities and occasionally sparked violence.

However, charges of encroachment against the Jama Masjid and another mosque in Fatehpur over the past four months hint at the possible opening of a parallel flank.

The mosque management committee said it had documents proving its right over the land where the mosque stands.

“The mosque was built around 1839 by local villagers when there was no road here. This was a deserted area. But the state PWD now claims it was built by encroaching on the highway,” Mohammad Moin Khan, the muttawali of the mosque, said.

It took three bulldozers about 90 minutes to pull down the rear portion of the mosque in the presence of about 100 policemen, deployed to prevent any resistance from the Muslim community that makes up a sizeable part of the local population.

On November 24, four people were killed when a mob clashed with police in Sambhal during a local court-ordered survey of the western Uttar Pradesh town’s Mughal-era Shahi Jama Masjid to determine whether it had been built after destroying a temple.

Twenty-odd similar cases, relating to various Muslim religious sites, have been filed with courts across the country.

Security personnel keep vigil outside the Noori Jama Masjid in Fatehpur on Tuesday PTI

Syed Azeem-ud-Din, counsel for the Noori Jama Masjid committee, said the mosque off the Banda-Bahraich highway was “under the supervision of the Archaeological Survey of India”.

“When we learnt the state government was preparing to demolish it, we approached the high court seeking a stay on the move,” he said.

“The hearing was scheduled for December 6 but was later deferred to December 13. The government has demolished a portion of it three days before that.”

A PWD engineer, asking not to be identified, said: “We have an order to widen the road and have given notices to 130 houses and other establishments. According to our measurements, a 150sqft area of the rear side of the mosque was illegally built, and so it was demolished.”

He added: “We know that a case is pending in the high court but we have no order from the court to delay our road construction work.”

In September, a local civil court had declared that the Madina Masjid in village Malwa in Fatehpur — about 30km from the Noori Jama Masjid — encroached on gram sabha (panchayat) land and asked authorities to remove it.

Some Hindus had petitioned the civil court after the Vishwa Hindu Parishad held an agitation against the Madina Masjid.

However, with the mosque committee challenging the civil court order in the district court, the demolition has been in limbo.

Haider Ali, president of the Madina Masjid management committee, said: “The village panchayat allotted land in 1976 for the mosque; we have documents to prove it. It was eventually registered with the state waqf board.”

Vrindavan Rai, inspector-in-charge, Lalauli police station, told PTI: “Law and order remains strong. All shops within a radius of about 200 metres around the mosque have been closed and an area of 300-metre radius has been sealed.”