A mazar in Uttarakhand’s Haridwar was demolished on Saturday by the district authorities who claimed it had been constructed illegally, reported The Times of India.

The authorities said that the mazar, in Mirpur village, was constructed between 15 to 20 years ago and had been served a demolition notice in March.

“When a notice was served, they [mazar management] promised to remove the structure themselves,” said District Magistrate Karmendra Singh. “But since they did not follow through, the structure had to be demolished.”

A mazar, colloquially known as a dargah, refers to a shrine built over the grave of a revered Muslim religious figure, whose name it usually bears.

Between May and August of 2023, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami’s Bharatiya Janata Party government demolished 465 mazars, 45 temples and two encroachments by a gurdwara in Uttarakhand, according to The Print.

According to Rao Zubair, the former head of the Mirpur gram panchayat, the demolition on Saturday came in response to complaints from some locals.

The district magistrate ordered an investigation on the basis of the complaints and reportedly found that the structure stood on government land leased out for agricultural purposes by the irrigation department.

Scroll’s reporting has shown that the state government appears to have selectively targeted Muslim places of worship on the pretext of removing encroachments from government land and public spaces.

On February 8, the administration demolished a mosque and madrasa in Banbhoolpura, in the city of Haldwani in Nainital district claiming that they were built illegally on government land – even while the matter was underway in the Uttarakhand High Court.

Six people were killed in a flare-up of violence that followed, and police cracked down on Muslim residents, detaining several men and barricading the areas in which they lived.

Also read: How Uttarakhand is selectively targeting Muslim shrines