At least 14 mosques and dargahs have been demolished in rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh under anti-encroachment drives, according to Scroll. Opposition parties, including congress, have alleged the demolitions amount to systematic communal targeting of Muslim religious structures. State authorities in both BJP-governed states have maintained that the actions are routine encroachment removal on government land, carried out under existing land-revenue and municipal laws — a classification that places them outside the scope of the supreme Court's 2024 guidelines against punitive bulldozer demolitions. As of publication, india Herald's requests for comment to bjp spokespersons and the state governments of rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh had not received a response.
At least 14 mosques and dargahs have been demolished across rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh in what state authorities describe as routine encroachment-removal drives on government land, according to Scroll. The demolitions have triggered a sharp political row, with Opposition parties accusing the BJP-ruled state governments of systematic communal targeting cloaked in administrative language. State officials, according to Scroll's reporting, have maintained that the drives are lawful actions under land-revenue statutes and municipal encroachment laws, carried out against structures built on public land without valid title.
As of publication, india Herald's requests for comment to bjp spokespersons and the state governments of rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh had not received a response.
The Legal Distinction at the Centre of the Dispute
To understand why these demolitions have proceeded without triggering the supreme Court's 2024 guidelines, it is necessary to parse the scope of the Court's order. The SC's directions, issued in response to the so-called 'bulldozer justice' phenomenon — where homes and businesses of accused persons were razed as extrajudicial punishment — specifically targeted punitive demolitions. They mandated due process, adequate notice, and prohibited the use of demolition as retaliation against individuals accused of crimes.
The current demolitions, however, are classified by state authorities as administrative encroachment removal rather than punitive action against any accused person. According to Scroll's reporting, no state authority has been found in explicit violation of the Court's order under this classification. In india Herald's analysis, this distinction between punitive and administrative demolition represents a significant gap in the current judicial framework — one that effectively allows large-scale removal of religious structures under land-revenue provisions that pre-date the Court's 2024 intervention.
Opposition leaders have contested the state governments' characterisation, arguing that the notice periods provided before demolition were, in several cases, too short to allow meaningful legal challenge. Scroll's reporting documents instances where the timeline between notice and demolition was compressed, though precise notice periods for each of the 14 structures have not been independently verified by india Herald.
The State Governments' Position
State authorities in both rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh have framed the demolitions as enforcement of existing land records, according to Scroll. The stated justification is that the demolished structures were built on government land without valid ownership documents or construction permits, making them encroachments under state-level land-revenue and municipal laws.
This legal framework grants significant discretionary power to district-level officials — tehsildars, sub-divisional magistrates, and municipal commissioners — to classify structures as encroachments and initiate removal proceedings. These powers derive from a combination of colonial-era land-revenue statutes, state-level amendments, and municipal bylaws. In india Herald's assessment, the breadth of this discretionary authority is a key factor enabling the current pattern, as the question of whether a structure constitutes a genuine encroachment or holds established customary use rights is, in practice, determined by the same administrative machinery conducting the removal.
The bjp has previously defended encroachment-removal drives as rule-of-law enforcement that applies equally to all communities. In Uttar Pradesh, chief minister Yogi Adityanath's administration has cited anti-encroachment action as part of its broader governance mandate since at least 2022. However, neither bjp national spokespersons nor the specific state administrations had responded to india Herald's requests for comment on the current demolitions at the time of publication.
Opposition Allegations and the Selectivity Question
Opposition leaders, including senior congress figures and india bloc partners, have alleged that the drives disproportionately target Muslim religious structures while comparable encroachments by other communities remain untouched, according to Scroll. This allegation of selective enforcement is the political core of the controversy.
Neither rajasthan nor Uttar Pradesh is a politically insignificant arena for such disputes. Uttar Pradesh, India's most electorally consequential state with 80 lok sabha seats, has been at the centre of bulldozer politics since demolitions following communal violence in Prayagraj and kanpur drew national attention in 2022. rajasthan, which the bjp won from congress in the 2023 assembly elections, together with Uttar Pradesh accounts for over 105 lok sabha constituencies.
In india Herald's analysis, the political significance of these demolitions extends beyond the immediate legal dispute. When Opposition parties allege that all 14 demolished structures belong to one community, the claim — if verified — would raise questions about selectivity that go beyond whether individual notice periods were technically adequate. However, india Herald has not independently verified the complete list of structures demolished in both states or whether non-Muslim encroachments of comparable scale have also been removed in the same drives.
What the supreme Court's Framework Does Not Cover
The Court's 2024 bulldozer guidelines were widely regarded as a landmark intervention, but legal commentators have noted that they were drawn to address a specific category of abuse — punitive demolitions targeting accused persons. The broader machinery of land-revenue-based encroachment removal was not within the scope of that order.
In india Herald's assessment, this gap has become the central legal and constitutional question raised by the current demolitions. If an anti-encroachment drive's cumulative effect mirrors the pattern of communal targeting that the court sought to curb, but its legal classification falls outside the Court's order, then the existing judicial framework may be insufficient to address the concern Opposition parties have raised.
For the Opposition, the demolitions present what analysts describe as a familiar political dilemma: protest risks being framed by the ruling party as defence of illegal encroachment, while silence allows the pattern to continue unchallenged. For the judiciary, the question is whether the punitive-versus-administrative distinction will be revisited in light of what Opposition leaders, as reported by Scroll, describe as an unmistakable pattern across two major states.
Until that legal question is tested in court, the classification of these demolitions as routine encroachment removal — rather than punitive action — will likely continue to determine their legality, regardless of the political debate surrounding their intent and effect.
Key Takeaways
- At least 14 mosques and dargahs demolished across rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh under anti-encroachment drives, according to Scroll
- State authorities maintain the demolitions are lawful encroachment removal on government land; Opposition parties allege systematic communal targeting of Muslim structures
- The demolitions are classified as administrative rather than punitive, placing them outside the scope of the supreme Court's 2024 anti-bulldozer guidelines
- Land-revenue and municipal encroachment laws grant district officials significant discretionary power — a gap legal commentators have identified as central to the dispute
- India Herald's requests for comment to bjp spokespersons and the state governments of rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh had not received a response at the time of publication
Frequently Asked Questions
How many mosques and dargahs have been demolished in rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh?
At least 14 mosques and dargahs have been demolished across the two states, according to Scroll, under drives classified by state authorities as encroachment removal on government land.
Do these demolitions violate the supreme Court's bulldozer guidelines?
The SC's 2024 guidelines targeted punitive demolitions against accused persons. The current demolitions are classified by state authorities as administrative encroachment removal — a category the Court's order does not explicitly cover. No state authority has been found in explicit violation under this classification, according to Scroll's reporting.
What is the bjp and state governments' stated position?
State authorities in both rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh have maintained that the demolished structures were built on government land without valid title, making them encroachments under existing land-revenue and municipal laws, according to Scroll. india Herald's requests for comment to bjp spokespersons and the state governments had not received a response at the time of publication.
What has the Opposition said about the mosque demolitions?
Opposition parties, including congress and india bloc partners, have accused the bjp state governments of communal targeting disguised as anti-encroachment action, alleging the drives disproportionately affect Muslim religious structures while leaving comparable encroachments by other communities untouched, according to Scroll.
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