Day after Saharanpur demolition, well discovered at the spot where mosque stood

A day after a mosque within the Saharanpur collectorate compound was demolished following a district court’s ruling, district officials on Sunday said that they found a well beneath the debris. The well, covered by a stone slab, was found to be around 20 feet deep and 1.5 metres wide.

Additional District Magistrate, Saharanpur, Santosh Bahadur Singh said that as an earthmover was clearing the debris following the demolition of the mosque, it suddenly got stuck on a slab. “Workers then used a cutter to break open the slab, revealing the well beneath,” the ADM said, adding that the administration was yet to decide on its next course of action.

At present, the well has been covered to prevent debris from falling in, and police teams have been deployed, and barricades have been put up to keep outsiders from entering the area. The mosque was demolished three days after a district court dismissed an appeal against an earlier ruling that had declared the structure unauthorised, holding that it stood on government land.

Vikas Tyagi, on whose complaint the district administration had conducted an inquiry into the mosque before filing a case in the City Magistrate's court, demanded that a detailed probe be carried out into the well as well.

He demanded that an ASI team be called to ascertain what else might lie beneath the mosque. The mosque had been declared an "unauthorised structure" in July, when the City Magistrate ordered its eviction within 30 days. The court also imposed a penalty of Rs 6.41 crore on the "illegal occupants" for the unauthorised occupation of the 315-square-metre parcel of government land, an order passed under the Uttar Pradesh Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1972.

Tanveer Ahmed, the mosque's Mutwali, alleged that the demolition had been carried out without due process. Congress MP from Saharanpur, Imran Masood, described the demolition as a "black day" for the people of Saharanpur, alleging that authorities had surrounded residents from all sides, confined them to their homes, and razed the mosque.