Stop menace of mosques coming up on public land: West Delhi BJP MP to L-G

“The menace of construction of mosques on above places, if not attended on priority, will take an ugly shape which will be difficult to manage at later stage,” he said.

Singh requested the L-G to constitute a committee comprising officers from MCDs, PWD, Police, Irrigation and Flood Control, and Horticulture departments, headed by district magistrates, to conduct a survey of areas where mosques have come up on government land, roads and secluded places.

When contacted, Singh claimed he had noticed this in parks and government land in Uttam Nagar, Raghuvir Nagar, Vikaspuri and Najafgarh.

When asked why his letter focused only on mosques and no other religious structures, he said, “I have written about mosques because I have seen only mosques doing encroachment and increasing their boundaries at regular intervals. They even get political support. If a committee is formed, it can investigate religious structures of other communities as well.”

A senior official of the South Corporation, however, said the problem wasn’t religion-specific. “People mainly do it to encroach government land — they first put a small structure and gradually increase it. During our drives, we have seen it with various religious structures,” said the official.

Reacting to the letter, Congress’s Mahabal Mishra, who lost to Verma in Lok Sabha polls, said he was singling out a religion.