India razes Sufi shrine revered by Muslims and Hindus
Security forces demolished a decades-old Sufi shrine visited by Hindus and Muslims, intensifying fears of state-driven erasure of Islamic heritage in India
NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — Authorities in northern India demolished a decades-old Sufi shrine on Monday using bulldozers, calling it an illegal structure, in a move community members and rights advocates say reflects a widening campaign to erase Islamic heritage and dismantle shared religious spaces under the country’s Hindu nationalist governance.
The demolition took place in Balrampur district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, where a large contingent of police accompanied officials as the shrine — long regarded as a symbol of Ganga–Jamuni tehzeeb, the centuries-old tradition of Hindu–Muslim coexistence — was razed within minutes.
Locals say the site drew worshippers of both faiths who visited to offer prayers and seek blessings.
According to Indian newspaper reports, officials claimed the shrine was built on government-owned land. The administration argued that the land belonged to a local police station and that no authorization existed for the religious structure.
The debris was removed under police supervision, and state authorities defended the demolition as a lawful action.
The shrine had been the subject of dispute since 2013, when former lawmaker Arif Anwar Hashmi was accused of registering a portion of the land in the shrine’s name by appointing his brother Maruf Anwar Hashmi as caretaker.
Officials allege that approximately 0.18 acres of land was fraudulently transferred, despite government records listing the parcel — Gata number 696, measuring 2.16 acres — as police property.
Community members maintain the shrine existed peacefully for years and functioned as a spiritual space, not an encroachment.
Human-rights observers argue that the framing of the demolition as administrative action masks a deeper ideological project that aims to reshape cultural identity by physically removing Muslim presence from public space while presenting it as law enforcement.
They warn that similar demolitions of mosques, madrasas and dargahs are increasingly justified under claims of “illegality” while syncretic heritage loses protection.
Cultural researchers say the destruction of shared sacred sites undermines the historical fabric of the region and replaces plural memory with majoritarian dominance. They cautioned that bulldozer politics has become a public spectacle designed to signal power rather than uphold justice.
The demolition, they say, reflects a climate where Islamic architecture, community identity and historical memory are treated as disposable, and where governance has shifted from constitutional due process to punitive symbolism.
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