After Hindu organizations demanded the removal of Aurangzeb’s tomb, a 17th-century Mughal king, causing assault on Monday night, a curfew was put in place in parts of a town in India’s northern state of Maharashtra.
In the Mahal region of Nagpur area, stones were thrown and cars set on fire.
Authorities claim the condition has now been managed and are appealing to the public to maintain order.
In recent years, the tomb of Aurangzeb, who passed away more than 300 years ago, has become a political hot button in response to growing calling for its treatment by radical Hindu organizations.
The state’s Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district, which was originally called Aurangabad after the emperor, is located about 500 kilometers ( 311 miles ) away from Nagpur.
According to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, two Hindu organizations, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, burned the king’s image and chanted phrases demanding the removal of his tomb after two Hindu organizations, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, broke out in a fight on Monday.
This led to rumors that some spiritual icons had been desecrated. Fadnavis claimed that this caused” a well-planned attack” as a result.
He claimed that a group of 250 Muslim men gathered and began yelling slogans after midnight prayers. Police used army when persons started threatening to set cars on fire, he added.
Nagpur police inspector Ravinder Singal reported to ANI news agency that more than 50 people had been detained and 33 police had suffered injuries in the incident.
Shops and businesses in Nagpur’s key areas are still open, and security measures have been implemented throughout the city.
Meanwhile, opposition parties have criticised the state’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government saying “law and order in the state has collapsed”.
A new Bollywood movie about Sambhaji, a Maratha king who clashed with Aurangzeb but lost, and its visual description of him being tortured was the catalyst for the violence this week.
According to Fadnavis, the film “ignited person’s anger against Aurangzeb” on Tuesday.
The problem has been making headlines in the state for days as Aurangzeb’s supporters from Hindu nationalist functions criticize him and demand that his tomb been taken down.
The protesters were also upset earlier this month when local politician Abu Azmi claimed Aurangzeb had “built some temples” and was not a” violent superintendent.”
India’s borders crossed to Afghanistan and present-day Myanmar during the king’s era, according to Azmi, and the nation was referred to as a “golden bird” for having a gross domestic product that made up a third of the global GDP.
He later admitted to a jury that his statements had been misinterpreted, but he was suspended from the state legislature in Maharashtra and the state assembly opened an investigation.
In 2022, Aurangzeb’s name was trending on social media when the dispute over a mosque – built on the ruins of the Vishwanath temple, a grand 17th-Century Hindu shrine destroyed on Aurangzeb’s orders – broke out as a court ordered a survey to ascertain if the mosque had been built over what was originally a Hindu temple.
After a local legislator questioned” the necessity of its existence” and demanded that its destruction, his tomb was closed to the public.
At a ceremony in Varanasi that year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi even addressed” Aurangzeb’s horrors and” his despair. He made an effort to use the weapon to alter civilization. He made an effort to” crush” culture with fanaticism, Modi said.
Aurangzeb was the sixth emperor of the Mughal kingdom who ruled India for nearly five decades from 1658 to 1707.
He is frequently portrayed as a devout Muslim who lived as an austere but was relentless in his efforts to grow the kingdom, enforcing strict sharia rules, and imposing oppressive taxes.
Although some critics claim he even built a few Hindu temples, some others accused him of razing others.
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