Kolkata: An increasingly confrontational campaign has gathered momentum around the 14th-century Adina Mosque in West Bengal’s Malda district, as Hindutva activists intensify efforts to claim the Archaeological Survey of India-protected monument is the site of an ancient Hindu shrine.

The dispute over Bengal’s largest medieval mosque has intensified following a series of physical drives, public legal filings, and inflammatory rhetoric from local organisers who are eager conduct Hindu rituals inside the protected complex. The developments have prompted heightened police vigilance in Malda, a border district where Muslims constitute approximately 52% of the population.

The latest tensions followed an event organised by the Hindu Suraksha Samiti, whose members transported a 3.5-foot-high stone Shivling weighing about 1.5 tonnes from Tarakeswar in Hooghly to a shrine barely 50 yards from the boundary of the Adina Mosque complex. On July 27, the rituals were held outside the ASI-protected area, but the organisation’s leaders told this contributor and on Facebook as well, that they intended to eventually enter the monument and perform a puja there.

An image showing the Shivling on the Hindutva group’s page.

‘Even if we don’t get a court order by then, we will conduct the puja’

Not much is known about the Hindu Suraksha Samiti or how large it is. It is also unclear where it originates from or is headquartered.

The state secretary of the Hindu Suraksha Samiti, one Avijit Das, told The Wire, “We announced before the election that we would conduct puja of Adinath [the Hindu deity Shiv] on the first Monday of Shravan [July 27]  in Adina masjid. This year, we conducted puja just outside the premises. We have filed a PIL [public interest litigation] to do it inside the compound next year.”

He added, “Even if we don’t get a court order by then, we will conduct the puja within the Masjid compound.”

Das also claimed that the organisation had “received cooperation from the local administration and the police, despite a prohibitory order issued by a magistrate.” The Wire has reached out to the Malda superintendent of police over this claim but is yet to hear back. His statement that the group could enter the protected compound even without judicial permission has added to concerns about a possible confrontation at the site.

Although Avijit Das denied any formal........

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