AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Authorities in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, have demolished several small shops in a Muslim-majority area of the city of Ayodhya, intensifying allegations that bulldozers are being used as instruments of “collective punishment” against Muslims, even as the legal dispute over the land remains unresolved.
The demolitions took place within the Adarsh Nagar Panchayat of the Janki Ward area. According to local residents, police forces and revenue department officials entered the neighborhood early in the morning with heavy machinery and destroyed shops that had served as families’ primary source of income for years. The site is located near the Ma Kamakhya Dham shrine and has been under heightened administrative scrutiny in recent months.
Shop owners say the land in question is the subject of an ongoing court case, with the next hearing scheduled for February 10. However, they state that the local administration carried out the irreversible act of demolition before a final judicial verdict, leaving dozens of families without any means of livelihood.
Sayed Nafis al-Hasan Abed, the former village head, said the action disproportionately targeted poor Muslim families. He added that bypassing the judicial process destroyed people’s livelihoods overnight. Other residents emphasized that they would have complied with an adverse court ruling, but were instead deprived of their right to due process and a fair hearing.
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