New Delhi: It began with an Instagram video. Around two weeks before the incident, a Dehradun resident with the handle “Ajay Kaptaan” visited the seven-decade-old shrine of Sufi poet Bulleh Shah in Mussoorie and filmed himself inside. In the video, he claimed bodies were lying at the shrine, which has “no place” in Uttarakhand, and that the state had become “mazar bhoomi” instead of “dev bhoomi (land of gods)”.
The content creator, allegedly belonging to the Dehradun unit of the Bajrang Dal, set in motion a series of events that would culminate on 24 January, when over two dozen men, including suspected members of the Uttarakhand unit of Hindu Raksha Dal, barged into the shrine, vandalised it with hammers and shovels, raised slogans and allegedly urinated inside.
Between the video and the attack were days of official scrutiny on legality of the shrine. All of it, as it turned out, made no difference.
Officials told ThePrint Tuesday that a series of claims on social media prompted questions about whether the shrine was built on forest or private land.
The forest department initiated an inquiry and found that the shrine was located on the premises of Wynberg-Allen School in Mussoorie, not on government or forest land. The school submitted records and documents confirming the shrine’s location on its property, officials said.
Right-wing outfits that had contested the shrine’s legality were convinced of its legal status after the inquiry, according to Rajat Aggarwal, who heads the Bulleh Shah Committee that runs the shrine.
Yet, the attack came “all of a sudden”, Aggarwal, who is also a BJP leader in Mussoorie, said.
“This incident has brought such a bad name to Mussoorie, which has been known for an amicable relationship between all communities. Dehradun Police have identified the suspects, and we have also called on the government to take the strictest possible action. This is plainly wrong and unacceptable,” Aggarwal said Tuesday.
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Inquiry that changed nothing
Asked about the need to check the shrine’s legality, Mussoorie’s district forest officer Amit Kanwar said the process was initiated after taking into account allegations and controversy raised by some groups and reported by the local media.
“There was no complaint, but to seek clarity on the ownership of the shrine, we had sought documents from the school management after it was verified that the shrine was based in the premises of the school,” the DFO said.
“A majority of the land is looked after by the forest department, and hence, notice was sent, seeking ownership records from the shrine committee and then by the school management,” he added.
The forest department’s inquiry concluded days before the vandalism. Kanwar emphasised that damage to the shrine “had nothing to do with the process” initiated by his department.
But the shrine’s caretaker—who requested anonymity citing potential blowback from right-wing groups—alleged that the Hindu Raksha Dal members continued visiting the site frequently even after the forest department had verified the land’s status. He said they kept raising the same allegations about the shrine’s illegality.
“Ultimately, they released a video raising the same points, which were already verified by the authorities and gave an ultimatum that if the authorities do not remove the shrine by 27 January, they will do it by themselves. They damaged the shrine, and took away money from the donation box of the shrine,” the sevadar told ThePrint.
The sevadar, who works at a private firm in Mussoorie and runs a business supplying chadars and other offerings for visitors to the shrine, said the site has been popular among people from all communities. Visitors from across the country, particularly large numbers from Punjab, come to pay their respects to Bulleh Shah, who is believed to be from the state.
“The shrine is run by the Bulleh Shah Committee, headed by Rajat Aggarwal, who is a popular leader of the BJP in Mussorie,” he told ThePrint.
The attack and the case
In his alert to members of the Bulleh Shah Committee on 24 January, the sevadar said a group of 25-30 people was entering the shrine with hammers and shovels.
“…They have also damaged the religious books kept there. Someone has also urinated on the shrine wall. This act has been done with the intention of spreading religious frenzy. Please take action,” he told the committee members, who approached the police, leading to an FIR.
Dehradun police on 25 January booked three men identified by the sevadar—Hariom, Shivaun, and Shraddha—under sections 196(1)(b) (acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony between different religious groups or communities) and 298 (damage or defilement of any place of worship) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
It isn’t known if any of the three accused arrested so far is ‘Ajay Kaptaan’.
Senior superintendent of police (SSP) Ajay Singh said all suspects are being identified and will be summoned for questioning, and a chargesheet will be filed.
But, he said, none of them—either named or to be identified during the probe—is liable for arrest as neither of the acts invoked in the FIR as of now mandates arrest. The Instagram video that started it all has since been removed from the account.
Hindu Raksha Dal members, meanwhile, have not shied away from claiming responsibility. The outfit’s chief Pinki Choudhary has multiple videos of the purported vandalism posted on his Facebook page.
The chief of the outfit’s Uttarakhand unit, Lalit Sharma, too, claimed “full responsibility”, saying: “My party workers carried out this act.”
Meanwhile, Vishwa Hindu Parishad national spokesperson Vinod Bansal said activists and workers linked to the VHP and its student outfit Bajrang Dal filed a complaint with the authorities leading to the inquiry.
“The government was yet to act on the matter but before that some local public went ahead and carried out this act. We have flagged this structure to be illegal since there are several such shrines of Bulleh Shah…but this act wasn’t done by VHP or Bajrang Dal,” Bansal told ThePrint.
(Edited by Prerna Madan)
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