Gujarat: Trust says Hindu ritual not inside dargah premises, HC disposes of plea

Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and other state ministers, along with office-bearers of Vishwa Hindu Parishad, are expected to attend the event.

The dargah has been at the centre of a dispute following alleged attempts at being converted to a Hindu place of worship.

Sunni Awami Forum through its trustee Usman Haji Ahmed Qureshi, has already challenged the purported “illegal” construction and conversion of the dargah and its premises into a temple with idols being installed, in a public interest litigation before the Gujarat HC.

The campus managed by the Imamshah Bawa Roza Trust, comprises three Saiyed Muslim trustees and eight Hindu trustees, and the petitioner alleged that the conversion of the nature of the place of worship is in contravention of the Places of Worship Act.

The forum, in this PIL, moved an urgent application over conductinig the ‘yagn’, with the petitioner pointing out that if the ‘kundi’ is installed, the nature of the dargah would stand “irreparably altered”.

Taken up before the division bench of Chief Justice Aravind Kumar and Justice AJ Shastri on Friday, the trust submitted before the court that while the three-day function will take place within the dargah campus, it would be, however, held in the allotted parking area and would not be conducted inside the dargah.

Following the trust’s submission, the petitioner submitted that it has no objection if that is the case. Recording the same in its order while directing the state government “to ensure that during this period law and order is maintained,” the court disposed of the application.

Situated in sensitive Pirana village on the outskirts of Ahmedabad city, Pir Imamshah Bawa Trust-run campus of the Sufi saint’s shrine originally consisted of a shrine of his four grandsons and a granddaughter of Pir Imamshah Bawa, a mosque named after Pir Imamshah Bawa, a graveyard where Saiyeds, who are descendants of Pir Imamshah Bawa, are buried.