Days after devouring the Shahi Jama Masjid in Sambhal, the Babri bugbear has returned to haunt the Jama Masjid Shamsi in Budaun city, about 100km away.

A local court will on Tuesday hear a two-year-old petition from Mukesh Patel, regional president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which claims the 800-year-old mosque was built after demolishing a Shiva temple, and the site should therefore be handed over to Hindus.

“Qutb ud-Din Aibak razed the temple in the 12th century and built the mosque there. I have proof,” Patel, who had filed his petition on August 8, 2022, told reporters in Budaun.

“Idols, old pillars and a cave still lie below the mosque. A survey may substantiate
my claim.”

Maulana Shahabuddin Razvi, a cleric, said Shams ud-Din Iltutmish had built the mosque in 1223, hence the name Shamsi Jama Masjid.

“The king was a Sufi and built the mosque because Muslims had no place for collective prayer,” he said.

“Those who don’t know history can easily claim their right over any mosque in the country because the political atmosphere suits them…. They are definitely enemies of India.”

Hindutva groups have weaponised the mosque-built-over-temple theme ever since the Supreme Court in 2019 transferred to Hindus the Ayodhya site where the Babri Masjid stood.

Four people died in street clashes on November 24 in Sambhal, western Uttar Pradesh, when a court-appointed survey team arrived at the Jama Masjid to verify the claim that Mughal emperor Babur had razed a Harihar temple to build the mosque.

The Budaun hearing will start just four days after the Supreme Court had restrained the Sambhal court that had ordered the survey from continuing proceedings, and asked the mosque committee to petition Allahabad High Court against the survey order.

Asrar Ahmad Siddiqui, counsel for the Budaun mosque, said: “There is no evidence of a temple there.”

Multiple other court cases have been filed seeking surveys of various mosques and dargahs to ascertain whether they were erected over destroyed temples, the list including the famed Ajmer Sharif dargah, Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi and Shahi Idgah in Mathura.

Opposition parties and Muslim groups have alleged these serial court petitions are mischievous and politically motivated, and questioned the roles played by BJP-led administrations.

In Sambhal, the local court had ordered the survey on the day the petition was moved, November 19, and the court-appointed surveyors visited the mosque the same afternoon accompanied by district magistrate Rajendra Pensiya and superintendent of police Krishna Kumar.

They came again on November 24 morning, with some people accompanying them allegedly chanting “Jai Shri Ram” — with the DM and the SP, who were present, accused of doing nothing to stop the provocation.

While an inquiry commission is probing the Sambhal violence, the administration has banned outsiders from entering the town till December 10. A Congress team led by state unit chief Ajay Rai was stopped in Lucknow on Monday as its convoy was about to set off for Sambhal.

“The BJP governments at the Centre and in the state are bent on dividing the country in the name of religion. Their only goal is to remain in power by misleading the majority community and harassing the minorities,” Rai said.

A 1991 act of Parliament mandates status quo at all places of worship apart from Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi, but it has been challenged in the Supreme Court.