Ahmedabad’s district police detained more than 100 people from Pirana village on Sunday for protesting the construction of a wall inside Imam Shah Bawa’s shrine, a 14th-century Sufi shrine. Hindus and Muslims have been fighting over the management of the shrine for several decades. The shrine was once considered a place of communal harmony.
Approximately 100 Muslim residents of Pirana village, about 20 km from Ahmedabad city, stormed the shrine premises after learning that a wall has been erected in place of barbed wire fencing. Originally installed in 2003, the wire fencing was put up following the clash between Hindus and followers of Pir Imam Shah Bawa. Hindus and Muslim followers were segregated into two parts of the campus by the fencing.
Villagers rushed to the site as soon as they heard of the construction of the concrete wall to replace the wire fencing. The local police bundled them into a number of police vehicles and kept them under detention at various police stations until later in the night when they were released. Among the protesters were 64 women and 69 men, most of whom were from Pirana village. The wall was built following the permission of the collector, according to Ahmedabad district superintendent of police Virendra Singh Yadav. In order to maintain law and order, the police briefly detained the villagers.
The shrine is run by the Imam Shah Bawa Roza Trust, which has nine trustees. Out of the nine trustees, six are Hindus and three are Muslims. The Hindu followers of the Sufi saint are called Satpanthis, which means ‘true path’, and the Muslims are called Shahdads since they are considered to be direct descendants of the saint. Currently, the shrine or dargah remains divided. Hindu trustees, who own a large chunk of the shrine, have accused Muslims of appropriating the shrine and ‘converting it into a Hindu temple’ over the years. The Satpanthis refer to the site as ‘Prerna Tirth or Samadhi’ and address Imam Shah Bawa as ‘Imam Shah Maharaj’.
One of the Muslim trustees, who was also detained by the police, told DH, ‘With the help of local administration and by dint of their majority, Hindu trustees are trying to take control of the entire dargah. The collector gave them permission to construct the wall even without consulting us. The construction has damaged the graves of our ancestors. But, there is no one listening to our grievances’.
One Hindu trustee’s associate said, ‘We are well within our rights to construct the wall. We have done so for the safety of the visitors as there have been incidents of stone-pelting and trespassing. We have not damaged any graves or buildings in any way’. Hindu trustees are ‘renovating the campus’ for hosting an RSS event from March 9 to March 13. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and other top saffron leaders are expected to attend.
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