On Sunday a youth forcibly tried to vandalise a Hindu temple premise chanting the religious slogan “Allahu Akbar”, injuring two constables with a sharp-edged weapon. The assailant, Mohammed Murtaza has been arrested and the case has been transferred to the UP ATS.
Case Diary
A 29-year-old youth on Sunday,3rd April tried to forcibly enter the premises of the Gorakhnath Temple. The constables guarding the temple gate tried to stop the assailant, but he surprisingly attacked them with a sharp-edged weapon injuring two constables namely Gopal Kumar Gaur and Anil Paswan. He kept dodging Police for 10 odd minutes while shouting Religious Slogans “Allah-hu-Akbar” according to some reports.
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Both the police constables have suffered serious injuries and were taken to BRD Hospital. The Initial news report identified the youth as Ahmad Murtaza Abbasi, an IIT Bombay graduate in Chemical Engineering. The Police officials have said to investigate the case from all angles including terror. The case has been transferred to UP Anti-Terror Squad (ATS).
Gorakhpur Zone- Additional Director General (ADG) Akhil Kumar said, ” We are looking into all angles, including terror. The police will interrogate Ahmed Murtaza and would carry out a thorough investigation”.
The head priest (Mahant) of the Gorakhnath Temple is the UP CM Yogi Adityanath himself, luckily he was not present on the premises. The temple is a religious attraction, especially during Navratri, where lakhs of devotees attend the temple from neighbouring states and Nepal.
Rampant Attacks on Temples
The Hindu Temples were demolished on a massive scale during the Islamic tyrants’ reign, But Unfortunately, the fate of temples has not changed even in democratic India. The Islamic mob enjoying political patronage seems to have launched a temple demolition jihad. According to one old report around 208 temples had been destroyed in Kashmir alone in just two decades. Many of the temple destructions have not been reported in the mainstream.
The fate of temples in South India has become worse because of appeasement politics. The Anti-Hindu party DMK alone has demolished around nine Hindu temples on the pretext of illegal land encroachment sparing the churches in the vicinity, the TFI has written extensively about the same. The plight of the Hindus’ temples in the adjoining nations is unimaginable.
Not just the structure of the temple, the priests and devotees have been under rampant attack as well. In 2018 a priest, sewadar, and 3 others were attacked in Haryana’s ‘Bhai-Behan Mandir’. According to some reports, the tongue was also cut out in the brutal attack.
The Islamic fanaticism, radicalisation, and organisations like the Popular Front of India (PFI) (the group is claimed to be the new SIMI, banned terrorist organisation) have been on a constant rise and such acts of provocation on religious institutions are a threat to our society as they are nothing but an attempt to spread communal hatred in the nation and cause riots, anarchy, and mayhem. The authorities are investigating it thoroughly and the punishment needs to set a precedence so that such attacks on our temples end forever.