Response to the story on the media dubbing the mosque illegal
Letter to the Hoot: I was surprised to see the story "Media dubs mosque illegal without probe" and it appears that the Waqf Board view has also been carried without any cross-checks at all.
A resident of Jangpura responds.
Since i’ve been living in the said colony for many years, the facts are as follows: There was an illegal JJ cluster mostly of illegal Bangladeshis, which was razed some five years aback on court orders. One of the structures inhabited by these persons was not demolished, allegedly because it was also doubling up as a place where people from the JJ cluster (only) would come to pray.
Please note that at this time there was no claim in the court or elsewhere by the Waqf Board or any other entity apart from DDA, that this was their land.
In the last five years, this tiny structure became bigger and bigger, and only by last year, when the matter was again in court, residents could see that some other outside persons had started taking an interest and the myth of it being Waqf land suddenly started.
However, all along, no one from the locality itself would visit this “masjid” and indeed once the JJ cluster had been removed in 2005, all those slum-dwellers had moved far away from the colony and would not visit here.
In fact, all the commotion over this “masjid” is by persons from outside the locality and one would be hard put to find even 10 namazis from the locality itself.
Rather than building more religious structures, it is best that community development work is undertaken and the myth of victimhood of any one particular community is not falsely whipped up.
A resident of Jangpura
New Delhi
January 25,2011
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