Police foil siege on disputed Kalyan fort

MUMBAI, April 8: The Shiv Sainiks' annual attempt to lay siege to the disputed Durgadi fort in Kalyan during the Muslim festival of Idd was ...

MUMBAI, April 8: The Shiv Sainiks’ annual attempt to lay siege to the disputed Durgadi fort in Kalyan during the Muslim festival of Idd was foiled once again today. The police detained over 200 Sainiks led by Sena leader Anand Dighe nearly a kilometre away at Lal Chowki.

Local Sainiks led by Dighe have been storming the disputed fort every year during the festival. Hindus and Muslims have been making conflicting claims on the fort since 1966 and the matter is currently sub-judiced. Today, Dighe was accompanied by Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Mayor Sharayu Pradhan and the Sena leader in the civic body, Sharad Gambirrao.

“To prevent them from creating any disturbance during namaaz prayers offered at the idgah we took them to Manpada police station and released them at 10 am,” said DCP Shrikant Savarkar.

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While Muslims claim that the fort houses an idgah where they have been offering prayers for centuries, the Hindus are equally emphatic about the Durga temple from which they claim that the fort derives itsname.

Blaming the administration for `kow-towing to the Muslims’, Dighe said the Hindus have an equal right to the fort and that the police should have allowed them to take darshan. He, however, parried questions on why he insisted on taking darshan during the morning namaaz.

Sharfuddin Karte, president of the Majlis-e-Mushavirin Masajidvo Aukaf said, “Dighe tries to foment trouble every year on Idd day.” He added, “Records show that the mixed Hindu-Muslim trading community lived amicably in the fort during Shivaji Maharaj’s rule. The fort then extended all the way down to what is now Kot Bahar masjid,” he explains.

“In 1966 a Sena councillor Namdeo Aher made the first exclusive Hindu claim to the fort and installed a Durga idol on the idgah’s peshimam,” Karte stated. When negotiations failed to resolve the matter both parties approached the court.

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While pooh-poohing Muslims’ claim, the mayor and other Sainiks were not forthcoming with evidence supporting their arguments. “We have alreadypresented the evidence in the court,” was all they were willing to say.Interestingly, during the erstwhile Congress rule in the state the Sainiks would be stopped at the gates of the fort but `Shiv Shahi’ has seen them being stopped away from the fort. Though Dighe claims that his actions have the blessings of party seniors not all the Sainiks agree. The Sena’s Labour Welfare Minister Sabir Sheikh, who was in Kalyan to offer namaaz at the Kali Masjid, dismissed Dighe’s actions as “nothing but an annual publicity stunt.”

Though Kalyan is considered a BJP bastion the party’s representatives were conspicuous by their absence at the rally. Party vice-president and Rajya Sabha MP Ram Kapse denied that there were differences in the saffron combine on the Durga temple-idgah issue.