Deoband: Construction of a religious building for worship in violation of Supreme Court order and also without permission of local government authorities led to communal tension. People belonging to Hindu and Muslim communities assembled at that place and before the situation could take an ugly turn, police arrived at the scene and demolished the unauthorised structure and saved the situation from deteriorating. As per the information available, some religious function was going on for a couple of days near Deoband’s Anaaj ki Mandi at Balaji Dham which is situated on government land. Taking advantage of the dark of night, some people belonging to Balaji Dham built a chabootara at a vacant land and installed the statue of Shani god. When Muslims came to know about it, they assembled there in protest. Members of the majority community also assembled there in strength and began slogan shouting. Fearing a law and order problem, police arrived, and after stopping further work, demolished whatever had been built unauthorisedly. Subsequently, those people again tried to continue the construction work but because of police and local administration’s strict action discontinued the work.

Subsequently, Palika member Abdul Qadir said that all this is nuzool land i.e. government land of which the Nagar Palika has been taking care since long but illegal work was started on this land a few days ago. He further said that this work was being done in violation of the Supreme Court’s order. These people were trying to mislead the local administration also. Deoband SDM also said that according to Supreme Court’s order no religious building can be built without the court’s permission. He further said that on the administration’s instructions those people stopped further work and maintained status quo and hence no action is being taken against them.