An upcoming conference organised by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) at Pirana on November 5, 6, and 7 threatens to turn the 600-year-old dargah (Sufi shrine) located here into a communal flashpoint.
A section of the trustees of the shrine has objected to the meeting, named Dharm Prasar Akhil Bharatiya Karyakarta Sammelan by its organisers. VHP’s Pravin Togadia and Ashok Singhal, and the RSS’s Bhaiyyaji Joshi and KS Sudarshan, along with hundreds of other members of the Sangh Parivar are expected to attend the conference.
The meeting is likely to be attended by around 2,500 people who will be at the venue for three days. The conference itself will be held at Gurukul School but the visitors will stay at the dargah. It is this arrangement which is said to be the bone of contention among the trustees of the dargah.
Saiyed Murtaza Ali Nazar Ali, president of the Imam Shahi Shahdads Committee comprising the Muslim members of the dargah’s trust, has asked the authorities, including Ahmedabad (rural) police, to keep the meeting away from the shrine. If the conference is allowed to be held at its current venue, it may cause social tension in the area, Ali said.
"The meeting will be held at Gurukul School but one of the dargah's trustees is also involved in organising the meeting. This is highly objectionable. We fear that the meeting will become a political affair and destroy the peace of the shrine which has been under threat since 1991," Ali told DNA. Incidentally, the Gurukul School is run by the RSS and the dargah trustee involved in organising the meeting is a Hindu. Raju Patel of the VHP said that people coming for the conference will be accommodated at the dargah but Mani Patel, one of the trustees of the dargah, denied this. "The dargah has nothing to do with the conference. But it is also not true that there is opposition to participants staying at the shrine. Only those who are followers of Nanak Dasji Maharaj may stay or the followers would be visiting the shrine for a darshan," Mani Patel said.
The trust which looks after the dargah, the seat of its Sufi saint, is called Imam Shah Baba Sansthan Trust. In the past, too, the trust management has had to deal with tension between the two communities. Out of 10 trustees, three are Muslims while the remaining seven are Hindus. The 600-year-old shrine was once the seat of the Sufi saint, Imam Shah Baba, who had a large number of followers from both communities. Unfortunately, it witnessed communal violence some six years ago mainly over the issue of the shrine's management. Both the sides have been accusing each other of giving the shrine communal colour.
A team of Ahmedabad rural police visited Pirana to review the ground situation for the bandobast. Superintendent of police, Ahmedabad (rural), Rajiv Ranjan Bhagat, confirmed that organisers of the meeting have arranged for participants to stay at the dargah, and that the Muslim members of the trust have raised objections to it. He further said that he had gone to Pirana to have a first-hand assessment of the situation there. Sources said that in view of Id-ul-Zuha (Bakr-Id) on November 7, the VHP organized meeting has the potential to shatter the peace in the area.
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