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New Delhi: “Where do I offer my respects to my dead brother? Even his shroud became visible when they demolished graves,” says a local from Mathura’s Manoharpura.

On April 26, 2026, Muslims in Mathura’s Manoharpura woke up to a rude shock when they found graves damaged, boundary structures destroyed and burial shrouds protruding from the earth in Ahl-e-Muslimeen Kabristan.

Among those affected were families who allege that the graves of their fathers, grandfathers and relatives were disturbed after JCBs working under the supervision of local authorities entered the cemetery late at night – a calculated strategy, according to locals.

Nine graves were desecrated at the Ahl-e-Muslimeen Kabristan, which has existed at the site since 1909. Six trees, 20 boundary fencing pillars, greenery and landscaping area were also damaged by the JCBs, which arrived in the middle of the night on the orders of Mathura Nagar Nigam’s Assistant Municipal Commissioners.

But local Muslims view this as a tool to tighten the larger atmosphere in the state.

Grief and grievance redressal

Graves were uprooted in a manner that revealed the inner shrouds and skeletons of those buried in the graveyard, leaving local Muslims overwhelmed by both grief and anger.

The graveyard is a gazetted Waqf Notified Property named as Waqf No. 74 and Waqf No. 858, as per documentation of the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board. Its certificate was renewed in December 2023. Residents say the cemetery has served local Muslim families for generations and contains the graves of parents, grandparents and other relatives.

Tausif Sheikh, a local whose uncle’s grave was desecrated in the incident feels absolutely humiliated. “Muslims have no value, dead or alive. Even our graves carry no respect from the administration. We buried our dead in a property validated by the Waqf board and yet we faced this theft of space. The shroud was also pulled out from the graves,” Sheikh said in anger.

Concrete slabs covering a drain outside Mathura’s Ahl-e-Muslimeen Kabristan in........

© The Wire