By Sabah Gurmat / The Wire
Bet Dwarka (Gujarat): Ahead of the 2022 Gujarat elections, home minister Amit Shah had said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had successfully demolished “fake mazaars” (Muslim shrines) in the westernmost coastal point of Bet Dwarka. He addressed it as part of a “clean-up” operation against illegal encroachments.
Today, thousands of Muslim fishermen are suffering the consequences, with communal tensions escalating around coastal Gujarat.
Since October 2022, the region’s coastal belt has experienced several targeted demolition drives. The first such incident took place in the port city of Porbandar. The authorities issued prohibitory orders which prevented local Muslims from protesting the demolition of the Murad Shah Pir dargah, which was cited as an ‘unauthorised’ religious structure.
Around the same time, in Bet Dwarka island, at least 100 structures, including 30 religious ones belonging to the “minority community”, were demolished.
The state’s tourism minister, Purnesh Modi, while defending the razing in Dwarka, said in a series of tweets (now deleted) that Muslim families living there had “married” their daughters to “grooms in Pakistan”. He further alleged that many Pakistani women were getting married to locals who lived on the island. He also alleged that the region had become a hub for the smuggling of drugs from Pakistan.
The Bet Dwarka island falls under the Devbhoomi district, where the Dwarkadhish Mukhya Mandir, a Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Krishna, is located. The majority of the island’s locals happen to be Muslims.
However, several fishermen alleged that all the demolished properties belonged to Muslims and that they were being “selectively picked out and targeted”. One of them is Bet Dwarka’s resident Ismail Chamadiya.
Chamadiya has filed multiple appeals to the authorities for compensation. He and his family of five have since been living under a makeshift tarpaulin tent, having nowhere to go since their home was destroyed. He alleged, “The distance between the Qamarali dargah and a local ‘mata ka mandir’ (temple) here was just half a kilometre, but the mandir has been left untouched whereas our dargah was reduced to rubble.”
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here