Hindu extremists blacken Bahadur Shah Zafar’s mural in Ghaziabad believing it is Aurangzeb
New Delhi: Members of a Hindutva group blackened a mural of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, at the Ghaziabad railway station on Friday, under the belief that it depicted the sixth Mughal ruler, Aurangzeb.
According to Kashmir Media Service, shouting “Aurangzeb murdabad”, members of the Hindu Raksha Dal sprayed black paint over the 16-foot-tall mural of Bahadur Shah Zafar.
Aurangzeb has again become the subject of a controversy in recent weeks, following demands by Hindutva groups to remove his tomb from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar city, formerly known as Aurangabad, in Maharashtra.
An unidentified railway official told The Times of India that efforts were made to convince the mob that the mural depicted Bahadur Shah Zafar. “But they thought they were right,” said the official.
“Before we could realise what was happening, they climbed atop each other and started smearing the portrait with colour,” he added.
The official told the newspaper that the members also wrote “HRD” on the mural and shouted “Hindu Raksha Dal Zindabad”, or long live Hindu Raksha Dal.
A case against unknown persons was registered under the Railways Act sections pertaining to unlawful entry upon or into any part of a railway (147) and defacing (166).
“The painting in question is certainly not of Aurangzeb, but of Bahadur Shah Zafar,” Udita Tyagi of CS Disha Foundation, who supervised the art project, told The Times of India. “Historically, Aurangzeb is not even distantly related to the First War of Independence, but Bahadur Shah Zafar definitely is.”
