UP: 10 'illegal' mazars built inside Bahraich medical college campus demolished

The district administration in Uttar Pradesh's Bahraich on Monday demolished 10 mazars (mausoleums) allegedly built on encroached land inside Maharaja Suheldev Autonomous State Medical College campus, officials said.

One of the mazars that is registered with the Waqf Board was spared during the bulldozer action, they added.

City Magistrate Rajesh Prasad told PTI that Rasool Shah Baswadi mazar, adjacent to the medical college campus, is registered with the Waqf Board. As per Waqf records, Hanif was listed as the mutawalli (caretaker) of the shrine. After his death a few years ago, its upkeep was being managed by his son Shafiq.

Prasad said that over time, the mazar managers allegedly encroached upon around 2,000 square feet of land and constructed 10 small and large mazars in addition to the one registered with the Waqf Board.

A boundary wall was also built around the encroached area.

Following a complaint in 2002, the then city magistrate declared all these additional shrines illegal, issued notices to the management and initiated legal proceedings, the officials said.

The mazar management lost the case in the city magistrate's court and later in an appeal before the district magistrate's court in 2004, Prasad said.

Subsequently, an appeal was filed before the Devipatan division commissioner, who in 2019 ruled that except for the single shrine registered with the Waqf Board, all others were illegal and must be removed.

Although the mazar operators sought two days' time in 2019 to remove the encroachments, the illegal structures remained in place, Prasad said, adding that the land earlier housed an agricultural farm and had no other construction at that time.

He said that after construction of the medical college began and it became operational in 2019, the mazars fell within the campus, prompting objections from the medical college authorities.

Earlier this month, the college principal wrote to the district magistrate seeking removal of the encroachment.

Acting on the directions of District Magistrate Akshay Tripathi, the shrine management was served a notice on January 10, asking them to comply with court orders and remove the illegal constructions by January 17.

''As the illegal encroachments were not removed even after the deadline, the administration carried out the demolition of 10 mazars using bulldozers on Monday,'' the city magistrate said, reiterating that the Waqf-registered shrine was not touched.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)