Members of various Hindu groups staged protest outside the Qutb Minar complex in Delhi, demanding that the world heritage site be handed over to Hindus.
Deputy commissioner of police (south) Benita Mary Jaiker said that no permission was granted by the police for the gathering outside the Qutub Minar complex.
She said that 50 people participated in the demonstration, and that those present at the gathering belonged to United Hindu Front and Rashtrawadi Shiv Sena.
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The protesters also chanted the Hanuman Chalisa while camping near the Qutb Minar, India Today reported.
“Of the 50 demonstrators, 44 were detained under section 65 of the Delhi Police Act. All of them were released before 6 pm,” said DCP Jaiker, adding that no first information report (FIR) was registered.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Jai Bhagwan Goyal, who is also the international president of the United Hindu Front and the national president of the Rashtrawadi Shiv Sena, alleged he was kept under house arrest in Shahdara by police since Tuesday morning.
“We had informed the area police commissioner about our programme to chant Hanuman Chalisa, but the ACP and SHO arrived at my house around 7am with around 50 policemen and put me under house arrest,” alleged Goyal.
Goyal claimed that the Qutub Minar was originally a temple, and that there were several idols in the complex. “Qutub-uddin-Aibak made the Qutub Minar in 1100 AD by altering our Vishnu Stambh and breaking our Sai, Hindu, Jain temples. He wrote Qutub Minar on the pillar. Even today, idols of our gods and goddesses are still a part of the complex which is clear proof of the fact our Hindu temples were broken to make Qutub Minar,” said Goyal.
“We have given a memorandum of our demands to Union home minister Amit Shah and tourism minister G Kishan Reddy,” he said.
Author and historian Swapna Liddle said the Qutub Minar was a heritage monument, and should be left untouched.
“Many of these ideas pertaining to the Qutub Minar’s history that people now have can be debated. Even after the Mughal rule, during the Maratha or British rule in Delhi, no one ever thought about these things (the monument being a temple). Why are we suddenly raising this? If this was a history that people had remembered for so many centuries, and it bothered them, they would have done something about it earlier,” Liddle said.
