Nagpur was limping back to normalcy on Tuesday following the overnight violence over the issue of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb`s grave.
Amid the controversy, Shiv Sena Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) Arjun Khotkar on Tuesday said that he supported the demand for the removal of Aurangzeb`s grave located in Khuldabad near Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar in the state.
“I want to say it very clearly that Aurangzeb`s grave should not be there. It should be removed,” Khotkar told ANI.
Meanwhile, earlier in the day, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Pravin Datke, while reaching the violence hit area of Hansapuri, asserted that the vandalisation of shops and stalls was indicative of the violence being “pre-planned.”
“This is all a pre-planned matter. If there were two shops each of Muslims and Hindus, only the latter was affected. There`s a [roadside] stall that belongs to a Muslim. Nothing happened to it. However, another stall that belonged to an elderly lady was damaged. The cameras were destroyed. It indicates that this thing was planned,” Datke told ANI.
The BJP legislator also slammed the police administration for the alleged delay in action in curtailing the violence and said that they are not standing with the citizens. Datke suspected that a large part of the mob came from the other neighbourhoods to the spot of the violence.
“I have to say that the police were not standing with the Hindu citizens here. I don`t know the reason behind it. A large part of the mob came from the outside…If the police don`t take action, the Hindus will be forced to take the next step. This is all I want to say,” the MLA from Nagpur Central said, further urging Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to investigate the matter.
Meanwhile, a local shopkeeper from the violence-hit Hansapuri area, said that at 10.30 pm, while closing his shop, he saw people torching vehicles. “When I tried to douse the fire, I was hit with a stone. My two vehicles and a few other vehicles parked nearby were torched,” he said.
A curfew has been imposed in multiple areas of Nagpur city under Section 163 of the Bhartiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) following tensions over the demand to remove Aurangzeb`s grave, read an official Maharashtra Police notification.
The curfew applies to police station limits in Kotwali, Ganeshpeth, Tehsil, Lakadganj, Pachpaoli, Shantinagar, Sakkardara, Nandanvan, Imamwada, Yashodharanagar, and Kapilnagar, ANI reported.
The order also stated that on Monday, around 200 to 250 members of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal gathered near the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj statue in Mahal, Nagpur, to support removing Aurangzeb`s grave. The protesters raised slogans demanding the grave`s removal and displayed a symbolic green cloth filled with cow dung cakes.
(With ANI inputs)
