A court order, bulldozers and protests: How demolition drive near Delhi's Turkman Gate unfolded

The situation in Central Delhi's Turkman Gate quickly escalated and spiraled into violence between Tuesday and Wednesday following a high court order on removing encroachments around the century-old Faiz-e-Elahi mosque.

Despite pushback from some people, who protested against the drive, authorities by Wednesday morning had torn down a banquet hall, a private diagnostics centre and a room where Haj pilgrims stayed, portions of a road, a footpath, and a car park, as reported by HT earlier.

Five people were detained after stone pelting by some local residents were reported, followed by a police lathi charge and tear-gas shelling.

Here is a timeline of how the events surrounding the demolition drive around Delhi's Faiz-e-Elahi mosque unfolded: Tuesday, 3.30pm: The Delhi High Court issued a notice to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and other requisite agencies in a petition by the managing committee of Masjid Syed Elahi challenging the MCD’s decision to remove the encroachments, abutting the century-old mosque. The mosque committee contended that the property in question was being used by it and lease rent was paid to the Delhi Waqf Board.

Tuesday, 10.30pm: Thirty-two bulldozers reached the spot, ready to remove the encroachments. As police sensed possibility of tensions, security was heightened.

Tuesday, 11pm: As security was heightened, nine additional commissioners of police, 25 assistant commissioners in nine zones, about 800 personnel from local police, and 10 companies of paramilitary forces were brought in, police said.

Tuesday 11.30pm: Locals reportedly started gathering around the mosque.

Wednesday, 1am: Authorities decided to carry out the demolition and asked locals to leave the premises. By this time around 150 of them had gathered and were raising slogans, according to police. However, about 25-30 people started pelting stones at police.

Wednesday, 1.30am: Demolition started after police used tear gas shells to disperse the crowd that hurled stones on the police.

Wednesday, 10am: Five people were detained after a first information report (FIR) was registered by the Delhi Police over the alleged stone pelting incident. “Five people have been detained in connection with the incident. They were identified with the help of videos captured by officials wearing bodycams and other footage available,” an official aware of the developments said.

Mohammed Zuhaib, 43, who runs a shop in the neighbourhood and lives about 30 metres away from the mosque, alleged that police threw tear gas shells into people’s houses on the residential street. “Till 3:30am, they must have used at least 50 tear gas shells. My children couldn’t sleep all night and they had a headache and watery eyes,” he told HT.

Another Mohammed Shehzad, 48, a member of the Aman Committee, a local group, said that most of the stone pelters were “outsiders” and only a few may have been locals. “Meetings were being held for a week with the police. On Monday, they showed us a map showing what all will be demolished and assured us that the mosque will not be touched. The information was then shared with locals and they were told to cooperate with the police. And they did. A few outsiders probably came here and created disturbance,” he said.

With inputs from Hemani Bhandari, Gargi Shukla