Agra Mayor Naveen Jain said on Wednesday that he, in his capacity as the national president of the Mayor’s Council, has appealed to all mayors to remove all plaques of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb from all places. “Aurangzeb was a cruel ruler who destroyed Hindu temples and forced the people of the Hindu community to convert to Islam,” the mayor said, adding that there should be no place for Aurangzeb in India.
The remarks come amid controversy over AIMIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi’s recent visit to Aurangzeb’s tomb in Aurangabad. Following his visit, security was tightened in and around Aurangzeb’s grave in Khuldabad after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) asked it to be ‘uprooted’ here on Wednesday.
While MNS activist Gajanan Kale on Tuesday questioned the need to preserve Aurangzeb’s grave, BJP MLC Prasad Lad threatened to remove the small monument, which is one of the major tourist attractions in and around Aurangabad.
In view of the potential threats to the tomb, the Maharashtra Police and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) have deployed additional guards and a van at the site, although it is still open to the public.
Demanding immediate removal of the additional security, Lad asked whether it was Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s ‘Hindutva brand’ when chanting Hanuman Chalisa was considered sedition.
“It is the same Aurangzeb who killed Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj (son of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj), demolished Hindu temples to build mosques. Now CM is providing security at Aurangzeb’s grave. Is this the Sonia Gandhi-Sharad Pawar style of Hindutva or the Hindutva of late Balasaheb Thackeray,” Lad asked.
He called on the state government to immediately call off the new security measures and vowed to uproot the tomb of the Mughal emperor.
The Gyanvapi mosque, which is being heard by a court in Varanasi and the Supreme Court, was also believed to have been built by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. The petitions claimed that Aurangzeb demolished the Kashi Vishwanath temple built two thousand years ago and built a mosque in its place.
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