Sambhal violence case: Allahabad HC rejects SP MP Ziaur Rehman Barq’s plea to quash F
Sambhal violence case: Allahabad HC rejects SP MP Ziaur Rehman Barq’s plea to quash FIR against him
M.U.H
03/01/202536
The Allahabad High Court on Friday rejected Samajwadi Party MP Ziaur Rehman Barq’s plea to quash the First Information Report (FIR) against him in the Sambhal violence case and said that the police investigation will continue. The high court, however, directed the police not to arrest the Sambhal MP and asked him to cooperate with the local police.
Barq was booked after violence broke out in Sambhal on November 24 after a court-ordered survey of the local Shahi Jama Masjid, leading to five people being killed and several policemen getting injured.
The high court developments came a day after the Chandausi court-appointed commissioner Ramesh Singh Raghav submitted a survey report of the masjid in a sealed packet to the office of Aditya Singh, the civil judge (senior division), on Thursday.
The 45-page report is said to contain more than 1,200 photographs taken during the survey of the mosque on November 19 and 24. It was the second survey that had sparked violence in the town. A pen drive with 4.5 hours of video footage of the surveys has also been placed in the sealed packet.
“As per directives of the honourable Supreme Court, the survey report has been submitted in a sealed packet which cannot be opened even by the judge till further directives of the apex court. The court has accepted the report and sealed it in another packet before placing the same in the records room,” Raghav said.
The mahant of the Kaila Devi temple in Chandausi, Rishi Raj Giri, and six others had filed a 95-page petition in a local court on November 19 claiming that the Shri Hari temple was converted into the Shahi Masjid in Sambhal by a lieutenant of Babar in 1529. The petition also claimed that the remains of the temple are present inside the mosque.
Judge Aditya Singh took up the petition on the same day and ordered a survey of the mosque after appointing the court commissioner. He had also directed that the report be submitted on November 28.
