At least 13 people have been arrested, with more detentions likely, after violent clashes erupted in Gujarat’s Somnath district on Monday when residents in Veraval’s Prabhas Patan area allegedly tried to stop officials from demolishing a dargah.
According to officials, the situation turned tense after a conversation between local residents and Mamlatdar office staff escalated into an altercation.
When the boundary wall of the Dargah was demolished, nearly 100 women and children reportedly gathered, protesting the move. Soon after,police alleged that the crowd began pelting stones at the police, who responded with a lathicharge and fired three teargas shells to disperse the mob.
Police said the situation was eventually brought under control, and the demolition drive resumed, according to the Indian Express.
By Tuesday morning, debris from 11 demolished structures, including houses and the religious site, had been cleared.
An FIR was registered at Prabhas Patan police station based on a complaint filed by Deputy Mamlatdar (Circle Officer) Ranjeetsinh R. Kher on behalf of the state.
The complaint stated that officials had gone to remove illegal constructions on government land, identified as survey number 831, and completed the task peacefully in the morning. However, in the evening, when demolition began at the dargah, a crowd of 70–100 people gathered and allegedly began shouting at the team before resorting to stone pelting.
A total of 17 named individuals and others from the crowd were booked under multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) for unlawful assembly, rioting, assaulting or obstructing a public servant, endangering human life, and causing hurt to a public servant. They were also charged under Section 135 of the Gujarat Police Act.
Police officials said that the area remains under surveillance and that more arrests are likely as the investigation continues.
This demolition is a continuation of tensions from September 28, 2024, when authorities razed nine Muslim religious sites including Haji Mangrol Dargah estimated 1,200 years old, Shah Silar Dargah, Garib Shah Dargah, and Jafar Muzaffar Dargah, a mosque, a 500-year-old graveyard, and 47 homes in the same Prabhas Patan area, despite a Supreme Court order halting “bulldozer justice” without due process.
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