New Delhi: An ongoing dispute between people of two Hindu communities over the construction of a temple and installation of an idol of B.R. Ambedkar on a patch of gram sabha land in a village in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh escalated into arson and stone-pelting late on Tuesday (January 28).
The violence broke out after police tried to remove an unauthorised statue of Ambedkar constructed by the Jatav (Dalit) community in Ibrahimpur village.
As the police reached the village on Tuesday evening to remove the statue built illegally on government land, locals, both men and women, pelted stones at the police team, said Aligarh district police chief Sanjiv Suman. The locals, irked by the administration’s decision to remove the statue, also set on fire several two-wheelers and damaged the windows of police vehicles.
Two policemen suffered minor injuries in the incident, said Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Suman, adding that three-four vehicles were set on fire. An FIR lodged in the case said that 13 police officials were injured – with two suffering serious injuries – while the glass windows of four police cars were damaged, five private two-wheelers were completely charred and one was partially damaged in the fire.
Twenty-seven persons, including the husband of the current village pradhan and the former pradhan, and 150-200 unidentified others were booked for attacking the police.
The incident took place after almost a week of tension in the village between the Dalit and Gaderia (OBC) communities over a construction on the land of the gram sabha. The Dalits in the village were allegedly unhappy after some members of the Gaderia community, traditionally associated with sheep and goat rearing, started the construction of a temple for locally-worshipped goddess Pathwari Devi on a vacant gram sabha land.
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Mukesh Kumar, a Gaderia villager from Ibrahimpur who was runner-up in the 2021 gram pradhan elections told The Wire that a week ago some members of his community started building a temple on a vacant land of the gram sabha. “The Jatav samaj people opposed this and started erecting a statue of Babasaheb Ambedkar in a nearby patch of land designated as a khaad gaddha (compost pit). There was no other dispute,” said Kumar, blaming the controversy on some “idle-minded” villagers.
It is illegal to construct anything on gram sabha land.
The matter first took a turn on January 25, when local Dalits tried to install a statue of Ambedkar overnight on the gram sabha land. The local police station, however, stopped the construction and the statue was left incomplete. On January 27, late at night, the locals managed to erect a statue of Ambedkar at the site on a platform of bricks, escalating tension.
Since then, the administration and the police were in constant talks with both sides, said SSP Suman. Additional forces were deployed in the village and talks were held at different levels to resolve the situation, he added.
On January 28, a delegation of villagers met both the district magistrate and SSP. The Dalits complained that the other community were building a temple on the gram sabha land. SSP Suman said that they immediately stopped the construction of the temple, of which only the boundary had been built so far.
“We told them we will not allow them to build it,” he said. “The law is very clear on this. No person can carry out any kind of construction on the gram sabha land of any village. And the statue cannot be installed either,” said the SSP.
Both the parties agreed after the talks with the DM and SSP, said Suman, adding that the statue of Ambedkar had been removed from the village. The situation was under control, he said.
“There was chaos for only 15 minutes,” said Suman. The officer said that police had taken into custody the pradhan of the village Asha Lodhi (OBC), her husband Nirdesh Lodhi and the former pradhan Chatrapal Singh (a Dalit) over the incident.
“This is basically village politics. It appears to be inspired by the upcoming (panchayat) elections,” said Suman.
Late on January 27, an FIR was lodged against Lodhi, her husband and Singh, a dozen villagers and around 150-200 unidentified others for rioting, damage to public property and criminal trespass after the statue of Ambedkar was erected on a patch of the 0.098 hectare land. The village head and the former head were accused of helping the locals install the statue and misleading them.
Lekhpal Deepika Varshney, who got the FIR lodged, said that the village head, her husband (her representative) and the former headman did not provide any information to the administration about the construction of the statue. Varshney said the statue was installed “in an illegal manner without obtaining permission from any competent level.”
Citing a government order from 2008, she said that no idol or statue of any “sant, mahatma or mahapurush” (icons) could be built on any land, even if privately-owned, without the authorisation of the government.
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On January 28, around 7.30 pm, the administration arrived in the village along with police to get the statue removed. Police said that SDM of Koil, Aligarh used a loudspeaker to ask the locals to get the “unconstitutionally-built” statue removed. However, they turned “more agitated” and started pelting stones at the police, said a police officer in an FIR, which invoked charges of criminal conspiracy, rioting, causing grievous hurt to a public servant and use of criminal force or assault against a public servant while they were performing their duties.
Dalit leader and Bijnor MP Chandrashekhar Aazad condemned the police action to remove the statue of Ambedkar. “The arrival of the police to remove the statue of Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar installed by the Jatav community” and the “tense situation created due to this exposes the bitter truth of the failed and biased law and order of Uttar Pradesh,” Aazad said on X.
“It is the responsibility of the law and administration to ensure respect for the rights and sentiments of all communities. In such cases, a sensitive and impartial attitude of the police and administration is extremely necessary. The government should take this seriously and ensure fair treatment towards all sections of the society, so that peace and harmony remains in the state,” he added.
