Uttar Pradesh police guard Sambhal’s 16th-century Shahi Jama Masjid. Violence broke out in the area after a local court ordered a survey to look for evidence of a Hindu temple at the site. Families of four of the five men killed in the violence claimed the police shot them, an accusation the police denied/SABAH GURMAT

By Sabah Gurmat

Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh: Idrissa Ghazi lay huddled in a blanket on a cot at the entrance of her two-room hut in a bylane of the Kot Garvi locality in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, shaking in anguish. 

The 60-year-old woman with a raspy voice and a turquoise-coloured shawl covering her sunken, ashen face yelled every few minutes.

“Lal, aa jaa mere laal. Kyun maara mere lal ko? (Beloved child, come back, my child. Why did you kill my child?)” 

Her son, 35-year-old Naeem Ghazi, who ran a mithai (sweetmeats) shop, was killed following the violence that broke out in the western Uttar Pradesh town of Sambhal on 24 November 2024. 

Naeem was among five Muslim men found dead after the violence in the state governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since 2017, with Hindutva hardliner Yogi Adityanath at the helm as the chief minister. 

The violence erupted after Muslim protesters clashed with the police as a local court ordered a second survey of the 16th-century Shahi Jama Masjid—among the oldest surviving Mughal era mosques in the country, built in 1526—within five days of the first, without allowing the mosque committee to be heard.

Naeem Ghazi, Mohammad Bilal, Ayaan, Mohammad Kaif and Rumaan Khan died in the violence.

This story was originally published in article-14.com. Read the full story here.