New Delhi: The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in a bid to divert attention from the alleged police firing at Muslims in Sambhal, has given a caste angle to the violent incident that took place on Sunday (November 24) claiming five lives. Absolving the police and its administration and putting the blame entirely on the Muslim community, the BJP has tried to project the violence which took place as the product of a long-standing rivalry between two Muslim communities, Turk and Pathan.
According to their theory, regurgitated without scrutiny by large sections of the vernacular Hindi media, last Sunday’s firing incident during a survey of the Mughal-era Shahi Jama Masjid was a result of the fight for domination between two political families of Sambhal belonging to the Turk and Pathan communities.
These are the families of the late former MP Shafiq-ur-Rehman Barq and ex-MLA Nawab Mehmood Hasan Khan, whose members have fought several elections against each other since independence. The Barq family belong to the Turk community, descendants of Turks, while the Khans are Pathans. The current Member of Parliament from Sambhal, Zia–ur-Rehman Barq, is Shafiq-ur-Rehman’s grandson, while Khan’s son Iqbal Mehmood is the MLA from Sambhal assembly constituency, a seat he has won seven times and held uninterrupted since 1996. Both politicians are from the Samajwadi Party.
The Sambhal police have named the Zia-ur-Rehman and Mehmood’s son Suhail Iqbal, in one of the seven FIRs, accusing them of instigating the mob to gather near the mosque. Both have denied the police allegations. Zia-ur-Rehman was in Bengaluru attending an official meeting on the day of the incident.
However, while the police is under fire facing allegations that its personnel fired at the mob, killing five Muslim men, a new theory has been planted in the vernacular media citing unnamed police sources blaming the political rivalry of these two families for the mob violence.
The ‘Turk versus Pathan’ theory was first planted by Nitin Agarwal, a minister in the Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government. On November 25, Agarwal posted on X saying, “The arson and violence in Sambhal is the result of the politics of dominance. The Turk-Pathan dispute not only disturbed the peace but also raised questions on the safety of common people. The promptness of the UP police is commendable.”
संभल की आगजनी और हिंसा वर्चस्व की राजनीति का नतीजा है। तुर्क-पठान विवाद ने न केवल शांति भंग की, बल्कि आम लोगों की सुरक्षा पर भी सवाल खड़े कर दिए। यूपी पुलिस की तत्परता सराहनीय है। #सपा_प्रायोजित_हिंसा
— Nitin Agarwal (मोदी का परिवार) (@nitinagarwal_n) November 25, 2024
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Agarwal used the hashtag ‘SP_sponsored_violence’ with the post. Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary, the BJP’s Uttar Pradesh state president, was quick to follow Agarawal’s path as he also dubbed the violence as the “result of the internal strife” between two influential political families of Sambhal. “The internal conflict of Samajwadi Party has caused violence in Sambhal. The government will definitely take legal action against whoever is found guilty in this incident,” said Chaudhary, who is an MLC. Further, he hinted that the ‘Turk-Pathan’ angle would be included in the investigation of the incident.
Soon after Agarwal made that controversial post on X, television channels and news websites, citing police sources, or no sources in some cases, started publishing stories iterating his contentious theory. The Wire found the ‘Turk-Pathan’ story published by more than a dozen mainstream news portals and channels.
“Turk vs Pathan ki ladai mein chali goli (Bullets were fired due to the fight between the Turks and the Pathans),” Nav Bharat Times reported. Photo: Screenshot from Nav Bharat Times website
“Sambhal Violence: Sources claim Turk vs Pathan rivalry behind [the] incident that killed four,” said a headline on the India TV website. “Turk Pathan ki jung mein jala Sambhal (Did Sambhal burn due to the fight between Turks and Pathans)?” asked Zee News. “Turk vs Pathan ki ladai mein chali goli (Bullets were fired due to the fight between the Turks and the Pathans),” said Nav Bharat Times.
Hindi newspaper Amar Ujala carried a story on its portal with the headline: “Turki Pathano ka vivad hain Sambhal mamle ka pura sach (Is the Turk-Pathan dispute the actual truth of the Sambhal incident)?” News18 India and News18 UP posted similar headlines. “Sambhal mein khooni ghamasan. Turk banam Pathan (Bloody clash in Sambhal. Turk versus Pathan),” said News18 UP. Republic Bharat posted an almost identical headline. TV9 Bharat Varsh asked, “Turk Pathan ki ladai ya police Muslim ki ladai (A fight between Turks and Pathans or police and Muslims)?”
Times Now Navbharat’s headline was “Sambhal mein Turk vs Pathan jung ki puri kahani (The full story of the Turk versus Pathan war in Sambhal).” Photo: Screengrab of video from Yotube
Television channel ABP’s headline said, “Sambhal ki ladai, Turk Pathan par ayi (Sambhal’s fight comes down to Turks versus Pathans).” Times Now Navbharat’s piece was sold as, “Sambhal mein Turk vs Pathan jung ki puri kahani (The full story of the Turk versus Pathan war in Sambhal).”
Amar Ujala reported the Sambhal violence with the headline “Turki Pathano ka vivad hain Sambhal mamle ka pura sach (Is the Turk-Pathan dispute the actual truth of the Sambhal incident)?” Photo: Screengrab of video from Youtube
The actual stakeholders in the incident have outrightly denied this theory. “There is no question of such a thing. No Turk stays in the locality or even at some distance from it,” Zafar Ali, the chairperson of the Shahi Jama Masjid committee told The Wire on Wednesday. “It is extremely improper of them to say such things,” he added.
Ali stood by the allegations he made earlier saying that the police fired bullets at the mob causing the five deaths. The police have denied his allegations and said that the five died due to gunshot wounds from country-made weapons, suggesting that the members of the mob shot at each other.
Ali and Opposition leaders of the Samajwadi Party (SP), have countered this by alleging that the police were carrying country-made weapons in addition to their service weapons. “The police killed them. I am a witness. I was there when it happened,” said Ali.
Another source, a representative of the mosque committee, said that although the two families had a long-standing political rivalry, which was often visible in the form of a Turk versus Pathan fight for political representation, they were united when it came to the cause of the mosque.
“On the day of the first survey (November 19), the MP, MLA and the chairman, all stood together at the mosque, and spoke out against the hurried survey,” said the source.
Also read: Sambhal and the Pattern of Official Narratives Without Truth
Suhail Iqbal, the MLA’s son accused of instigating the violence, appeared disturbed when a Zee News reporter asked him his views on the Turk-Pathan question. “I’m pained to hear this when there is a struggle going on for the mosque, you are asking such questions, We are Muslims and nothing is bigger than our faith for us. We all live peacefully here, Hindus and Muslims. I would request you to not create a new issue,” said Iqbal.
In Lucknow, senior SP MLA and the leader of the Opposition in Uttar Pradesh, Mata Prasad Pandey, also dismissed the ‘Turk-Pathan’ theory. He said the police were planting such stories to protect themselves. “The police are saying these things to protect themselves because they are badly trapped. The four people died of police bullets. This will come out after an impartial investigation,” Pandey said at a press conference.
MLA Iqbal Mehmood defeated the junior Barq in the 2017 assembly election when the latter contested as an All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) candidate. Iqbal Mehmood defeated Shafiq-ur-Rehman Barq in 1991 and 2002, while in 2007, he also defeated Shafiq-ur-Rehman’s son and Zia-ur-Rehman’s father Mamluk-ur-Rehman.
Iqbal Mehmood’s father Mehmood Hasan Khan won Sambhal assembly seat three times, in 1957, 1962 and 1969.
Shafiq-ur-Rehman Barq, who also won five Lok Sabha elections from Moradabad and Sambhal, won the Sambhal assembly seat on four occasions. In 1974, 1977 and 1985, he defeated Mehmood Hasan Khan while in 1989 he beat his son Iqbal Mehmood.
In 2022, Zia-ur-Rehman Barq was elected as an MLA from Kundarki in Moradabad. He contested the 2024 Lok Sabha election from Sambhal seat after his grandfather passed away a few months before the voting. The BJP won the Kundarki by-poll election last week, delivering a shocking result in a constituency concentrated with Muslims. The Opposition blamed election malpractices and misuse of police and administrative machinery to prevent its voters from voting for the huge defeat, which also stood out for the 1.45 lakh margin of victory for the BJP. The BJP, on the other hand, tried to project the win as the result of the internal strife between different Muslim castes. The SP’s candidate Mohammad Rizwan, a former MLA, is a Turk.
Moradabad divisional commissioner Aunjaneya Kumar Singh said so far 27 persons had been arrested for the violence. Seventy-four accused persons had been identified, he added.
