Gujarat: Illegal religious structures, including a mosque, a 500-year-old graveyard, and dargahs close to Somnath Temple demolished

36 JCBs, 70 tractors, 5 Hitachi machines, 10 dumpers and 1,400 policemen were deployed by the Gujarat administration as a part of the demolition operation, reported Desh Gujarat, a news organisation based out of Gujarat. 

The Gujarat administration demolished Illegal religious structures, including a mosque, graveyard, and a dargah near the hallowed Somnath Temple on 28 September 2024.

36 JCBs, 70 tractors, 5 Hitachi machines, 10 dumpers and 1,400 policemen were deployed by the Gujarat administration as a part of the demolition operation, reported Desh Gujarat, a news organisation based out of Gujarat. 

The operation was in response to illegal encroachments and unlawfully constructed religious structures that had cropped up in Prabhas Patan in Gir Somnath district close to Somnath Mandir.

A bevvy of members from the minority community gathered to witness the spectacle as JCBs and machines rolled to raze down illegal structures. While the operation was conducted in peace and harmony, over 70 people were detained over protests and movements in restricted areas. Among those present at the site included the district collector, IG, three SPs, six DySPs, and fifty police inspectors and sub-inspectors.

A video circulated by the official X account of ‘The Observer Post’, an ‘Independent media organisation’ as per its bio, claimed that bulldozers were used to demolish mosques, graveyards, and dargahs in Prabhas Patan Veraval in Somnath. 

The demolition began early in the morning, around 4 am. Construction of illegal religious structures on government lands is a common site in Gujarat, most notably in coastal regions such as Somnath, which had once been an object of Islamist perversity, repeatedly raided by Mahmud of Ghazni, who not only broke the presiding deity’s idol into four pieces in an attempt to humiliate Hindus but also reportedly sent them to different places; one he took with him to Ghazni (in Afghanistan) where it was deposited at the threshold of the Jama Masjid of Ghazni and the other piece at the court door of his palace. The remaining two fragments were sent to Mecca and Medina to be buried inside the mosques there.

The legendary loot of the Somnath temple brought other Islamic marauders to its shores as well, along with other places of religious import for Hindus, Jains, and other communities, like Dwarka, Girnar, etc. These temples, which were a confluence of trade and religiosity, also brought settlers from places far and wide. Over time, illegal structures mushroomed up alongside these religious shrines, many of which have been razed down as a part of demolition drives carried out by the Gujarat administration in the past in coastal locations like Bet Dwarka, Porbandar, and Jamnagar. These operations have targeted not only encroachments but also instances of land grabbing and activities such as drug trafficking, smuggling, and other threats to national security.