Road Widening: Mosque wall demolished after community's nod

A compound wall of a mosque for Shia Muslims here was today demolished by the civic authorities to widen a road after members of the community agreed to it.
The demolition was carried out in the presence of Mayor Sampath Raj and Congress MLA N A Harris and officials of the city civic body Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).
The Masjid-E-Askari and Shia Graveyard managing committee president Mir Ali Jawad had said they decided to give a portion of the mosque space, including the wall, as they did not want to give any trouble to the people of Bengaluru and the state government.

The city corporation had planned to widen the road to ease traffic congestion about five years ago but could not do it as the then mosque managing committee was against the proposal.
The new committee took up the matter and agreed to allow the BBMP to use the space, Jawad had said.
The mosque authorities had already built a new wall and also sought allotment of alternative land in lieu of the about 1,000 squre feet space they had given. They want to build another mosque.

Harris told reporters today that he would speak to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Bengaluru Incharge Minister K J George to allot the land.

At present, there are three Shia mosques in the city, one at Johnson Market, another at Yeshvanthpur and the third at Aneplaya.
According to Jawad, there were about 18,000 Shia community members in Bengaluru.