In the lush green Sahyadri hills, vehicles are stopped at a check-post near the Pandharepani village bus stop, in Maharashtra. Even two weeks after the violence in Vishalgad, just 18 kilometres down the single-lane road from here, only residents are permitted to enter. The 11th-century Vishalgad Fort, in Shahuwadi tehsil of Kolhapur district, is where Chhatrapati Shivaji had escaped to in 1660 from Panhala Fort, about 60 km away, when it was besieged by the Bijapur army.
It was down this road that, on July 14, a mob, allegedly of people from right-wing Hindu organisations, had made its way to tear down government-declared encroachments in and around the fort. They had, in the process, attacked a dargah within the fort area and a mosque in the adjoining Gajapur village. Several homes were vandalised. As of August 3, up to 24 people who were allegedly a part of the mob had been arrested and five FIRs filed against 1,500 people.
Now, four weeks later, Section 163 (directing a person to abstain from a certain act or property) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) that came into effect on July 1, is still in place. Vishalgad village, about 80 km north-west of Kolhapur city, with a Muslim-majority population, finds its social fabric strained, as people move about with fear and suspicion. The presence of security forces across the 400-plus acres of the fort area means hostility hangs in the air like the mist that shrouds the fort.
Sadness and outrage
Abu Bakr Mujawar, 46, who claims to be a ninth-generation resident, and is a former deputy sarpanch of the village, says, “Vishalgad Fort has promoted Hindu-Muslim harmony and served as an excellent example of unity.” He talks about the putrid mix of Hindutva and land rights that has thrown the area into conflict.
Dhondiram Sitaram Bhosale, 45, another resident of Vishalgad, agrees. “Even during Shiv Jayanti, Mujawars (a community of mosque attendants, also a surname) are the first to perform puja — that is the beauty of the place. Outsiders have ruined our paradise,” Bhosale says. The ‘outsiders’ he refers to are right-wing groupings that have been claiming the fort as a Hindu bastion, demanding a ban on animal slaughter in the fort area, asking for the ‘encroachers’ to be thrown out.
The economy of Vishalgad is centred on pilgrims, who come here for the Hazrat Sayyed Malik Rehan Meera Saheb dargah, where people believe prayers are answered. The 13th-century dargah has been mentioned in the 1886 Maharashtra State Gazetteer, and is believed to be the place where a peer baba (holy man) originally from Iran, is buried. People own small shops selling groceries, flowers, and snacks. Many are associated with the lodges here, either owning or working in them. Shops and homes meld into the fort’s ruins. People from villages around come here to earn their livelihood. Hundreds visit the dargah during urs (anniversary) after Bakrid.
Sequence of events
On July 5, Vishalgad residents asked the Shahuwadi police station for protection, citing viral videos on social media saying that Vishalgad’s dargah would end up like the Babri Masjid.
On July 7, one of those videos, of Ravindra Padwal of the Vishalgad Mukti Sangram, a right-wing assembly, went viral, riling people up to join a march to Vishalgad. Right-wing outfits had been demanding the removal of what the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) had deemed encroachments. It was also the day of a maha aarti, where slogans of “Ayi Bhavani shakti de, Vishalgad la mukti de” (Mother Bhavani give me the strength to free Vishalgad) were raised.
On July 13, there were 132 police officials deployed in anticipation of trouble, and on July 14, over 500, including two platoons of the Riot Control Police. The forces were divided along the road to Vishalgad Fort: the first at Pandharepani; the second at Gajapur check-post, the adjoining village; the third at Muslimwadi near the Raza Sunni Jama masjid in Gajapur; the fourth at Watch Tower point, 2 km away from the Vishalgad Fort; the fifth at the foothills of the fort, just before the narrow footbridge that leads to the fort; and the sixth at the fort itself.
Around the same time, former Rajya Sabha MP, now an independent politician, and the 13th descendant of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Sambhaji Chhatrapati, called people to join the ‘Chalo Vishalgad’ rally to protest the encroachments at Vishalgad Fort on July 13. This was the date on which Shivaji is said to have escaped to Vishalgad. Later, Sambhaji postponed the rally to July 14. Authorities denied permission for the rally.
Mobs marched on Vishalgad
Around 9.30 a.m. on July 14, a slow Sunday morning, Malika Mahaldar, 32, an Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) worker, was about to fetch water from the tank across from her home. She noticed eight to 10 men, armed with sticks and swords, hurling abuses and threatening to throw out the Muslim residents in and around the settlements at Vishalgad Fort. “They looked at me and shouted, ‘Get out from the fort’, and soon started throwing stones and hurling glass bottles at homes of Muslim residents,” says Mahaldar.
For Mahaldar’s 28-year-old neighbour it was the opposite. Seeing a mandir and tulsi plant outside her main door, the men assured her that there was nothing to fear, and she should join them to “free Vishalgad”.
The narrow bridge that the mob crossed, that connects the base of the fort (pytha) to the fort. Police personnel were stationed at the spot on July 14, when some members of the mob allegedly slipped through and went on to damage some of the residents’ homes. | Photo Credit: Gautam Nirmal Doshi
Mahaldar, along with her husband and 12-year-old son, rushed to the dargah in Vishalgad for safety, as did Fatima Maldar, 35, her children, and several others. The 498-strong Muslim population (as per a police count) had heard slogans like “Landyana khatam karu ya, Vishalgad mukt karu ya, (Let’s kill the Muslims and free Vishalgad).”
Many people had slept in after observing the saatvi raat (seventh night) of Muharram. “We woke up to abuses. Everyone rushed to the dargah so we could collectively resist. About 50 people reached the dargah, some from the front, the remaining from the qabristan (graveyard, on a side). They climbed on the dargah, tried to damage it, and pelted stones at people,” says Abu Bakr. Those at the dargah pelted stones back, residents say. While a few people got minor injuries, four were heavily bruised.
The police arrived to disperse the mob. Inspector Vijay Baba Gherade says the fog was thick, rainfall heavy, and there were glitches in mobile phone connectivity, all leading to a difficulty in controlling the mob. “July 14 is also [Maratha general] Veer Bajiprabhu Deshpande’s shaurya din (the day he was killed). People come to Pawankhind [about 5 km from the first check-post]. So it was difficult to tell who the visitors were and who the members of the mob were,” Gherade says.
Attack on a mosque
A little past noon, violence broke out down the road in Muslimwadi, Gajapur, say the police and residents, with a mob hitting the neighbourhood mosque with axes. Muslimwadi has around 70 houses, and people here claim their ancestors worked at the fort in Shivaji’s time.
Gherade says there were different groups at work, one was with Padwal, the other was Sambhaji’s group, though he himself showed up in the area only by about 2 p.m. on the day. “Weapons and sticks were confiscated from these groups as well. But some miscreants managed to still get through. Some entered the fort area; some entered Muslimwadi later,” he says. Padwal, he says, “is absconding”; Sambhaji has been named in an FIR. Up to 18 police personnel were injured due to the rioting and stone pelting, two grievously.
Now, in Muslimwadi, the windows of homes are shattered, door frames broken. Most houses are locked; some have shielded themselves with plastic sheets. The masjid is empty too. Hardly anyone is in sight. The silence is palpable. Up to 42 houses were damaged and 56 families were affected, as per the police panchanama (report). Authorities compensated the families with ₹50,000 each.
“Muslimwadi thi toh halla kiya (‘It’s Muslimwadi that’s why there was chaos’),” Rehman Prabhulkar, 45, says. Prabhulkar and his cousin, Yakub Prabhalkar, 45, say they were the first to be confronted by the men in the mob. “We begged them to spare us. We told them we have nothing to do with the encroachments in Vishalgad. They ignored us, pelted stones, beat my cousin, and vandalised the masjid,” says Prabhulkar. They rushed home, collected family and friends, and ran to the nearby forest, where they remained, until 5 p.m.
History, hostility, and land rights
The hostility in the area is centred around land. In January 1999 Vishalgad Fort was declared a “protected monument” by the Maharashtra State government. As per the notification, the total area protected was 333.19 acres. According to the Kolhapur Talati (an accountant, who keeps land records), 6 acres is gaothan land (dedicated area for settlements and community space in the village), and 89.9 acres is private land.
One of the main alleys leading to the dargah, where properties were demolished by the government a day after violence in the area. | Photo Credit: Gautam Nirmal Doshi
A survey in 2021 determined that 21 houses of Bhosalewadis (homes of the Bhosales, a Hindu subgroup), are the gaothan, making them legitimate. The other 158 properties, chiefly around a dargah, were deemed encroachments.
The first notice saying people had encroached upon 2,152 sq ft of land with concrete structures came 23 years after the fort was protected. It asked for people to move within 30 days, “or else action will be taken by the government”.
Vilas Wahane, the assistant director at the Department of Archaeology, says, “The notice was given to them in 2022. As per the law no construction activity can take place in a protected area, and as per Rule 8 (c) of the Maharashtra Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1962, no food can be cooked or eaten in the area, unless permitted. These rules were violated.” The second notice was also in January, stipulating that the 158 encroachments would be removed.
Mubarak Sattar Mandar, 50, shows government documents as proof of his home he says was built in 1986. | Photo Credit: Gautam Nirmal Doshi
In February 2023, the State government passed a resolution approving a budget of ₹1.73 crore for demolition of encroachments in Vishalgad. The residents filed petitions in the Bombay High Court, and the demolition was stayed. The same month the court also said no coercive steps should be taken against the petitioners.
Breaking down structures
A day before the violence, the ASI issued a letter to Shahuwadi’s Tahsildar to pass necessary orders and provide police protection for a smooth demolition drive. A day after, as residents were recovering from the attacks, the authorities, including the Kolhapur Superintendent of Police (SP), visited Vishalgad Fort and assured people that encroachments protected by the court would not be disturbed. According to the Directorate of Archaeology, 94 commercial structures were demolished over the next few days.
However, Makbul Bargir, 45, and Feroz Haider Ali Sayyed, in his 40s, say their homes were demolished too. “For the past two years we have been in constant fear,” Bargir says. His late mother’s birthplace is Vishalgad, he says, and after his parents were married, his father moved here. Sayyed is a single father, and lives with his mother-in-law and his two sons, 9 and 4, and works as a helper for the lodge owners.
The residents went to court for relief against the demolition drive conducted on July 15. The court came down heavily on police for removing encroachments during monsoon.
In his speech on the day of the violence, Sambhaji said to the crowd at Gajapur, “We have put so much pressure on the government that it has taken the decision to remove encroachment tomorrow itself; this is historic.” This was followed by a loud cheer from the assembled crowd. On July 18, Sambhaji wrote a letter to the Chief Minister Eknath Shinde expressing his gratitude for keeping his promise to remove the encroachments on Vishalgad Fort from the very next day.
Abu Bakr says, “We have been here since the time there were no basic facilities like water, ST buses, and education. We have been through the worst. After all this, how can they remove us, like we never existed? How much more are they going to make our lives miserable for being Muslim? We were first attacked and subsequently harassed during the holy month of Muharram. Is this human?”
Malik Mujawar, 34, another resident, says, “Since 2022, people have been trying different ways to get us out of here. They cited cleanliness as the reason and spread fake news about blood entering the Shiv Mandir.” He points out that all the slaughtering is done at least 800 m away from the residences. However, authorities denied permission for the Bakrid sacrifice in 2023. An affidavit was filed in the Bombay High Court in June 2024 for a five-day permission, which the court granted. Yet, this year residents did not celebrate Bakrid with a sacrifice.
Residents say if they had been informed in 1999 about the protected land, they would not have constructed houses here. They ask that the government allow the properties built before 1999 and rehabilitate the others.
