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Mumbai: Anxiety and resentment are growing among Muslims in Maharashtra as demolition notices have been issued to 18 mosques in Pune district, with five already demolished, raising concerns over selective targeting of Muslim religious institutions.<\/p>\n
According to Kashmir Media Service, tensions erupted in the Kudalwadi area of Chikhali in Pune when the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) launched a demolition drive against 11 structures, including mosques, alleging that they were \u201cunauthorised.\u201d Clashes broke out between residents and police during the operation, prompting police personnel to resort to baton charges to disperse protesters.<\/p>\n
Following the demolitions, a delegation of the Raza Academy met Vanchit Bahujan Agadi (VBA) chief Prakash Ambedkar and sought his intervention to help protect the religious sites from further action.<\/p>\n
A Raza Academy official said the delegation approached Ambedkar due to his influence in the Pimpri Chinchwad region and added that efforts are also underway to engage with relevant authorities to halt the demolitions.<\/p>\n
The PCMC had served notices in April 2025 to 31 religious structures in the area, including 18 mosques. Five mosques have already been razed, while the fate of the remaining structures is expected to be decided after the disposal of appeals pending before various authorities.<\/p>\n
Niyaz Siddiqui, president of the Raza Masjid Trust, said six mosques had challenged the notices before the Waqf Board. He maintained that the mosques are situated on land legally owned by private individuals or registered trusts and therefore should not be subjected to demolition.<\/p>\n
Local residents have expressed concern over what they perceive as discriminatory enforcement. They argued that numerous unauthorised structures, including religious buildings in other parts of the city, continue to exist despite obstructing roads, development projects and natural waterways.<\/p>\n
Residents maintained that the action in Kudalwadi appears selective and disproportionately directed at Muslim places of worship, deepening fears and uncertainty within the local Muslim community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mumbai: Anxiety and resentment are growing among Muslims in Maharashtra as demolition notices have been issued to 18 mosques in Pune district, with five already demolished, raising concerns over selective targeting of Muslim religious institutions. According to Kashmir Media Service, tensions erupted in the Kudalwadi area of Chikhali in Pune when the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":202697,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-202696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/assests\/2026\/06\/india-muslim-masjid.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202696"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202698,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202696\/revisions\/202698"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}