Balapur is not very far away from the city rather it can be considered as the part of the city. The area has an Eidgah of Aalamgir era spread over an area of 10 guntas (1200 sqyd). Eidain prayers were performed there until recently, but the criminal negligence of Andhra Pradesh state Waqf Board has emboldened the miscreants who closed the doors of Eidgah for Muslims notwithstanding the law. Now some local non Muslim land grabbers have started sale of the land by doing plotting on the land of ancient Eidgah. The land is sold at Rs. 5000 per sqyd. The land grabbers have not only encroached upon the land but in a way have desecrated the Eidgah. Now they say that the Eidgah was built by their forefathers. It must be noted that this ancient Eidgah of Balapur is recorded in the Waqf gazette in gazette no: 6-A dated 9th February 1989 serial no: 2675.
One Abdul Kareem resident of Balapur and his friends had repeatedly made complaints with Andhra Pradesh Waqf Board, Saroornagar MRO, local police and other concerned departments against the illegal occupation and desecration of the Eidgah but to no avail. When our correspondent was trying to take photograph of the Eidgah the land grabbers sent some women forward to stop him from taking the photograph.
One of the women angrily said ‘we would not allow Muslims to offer namaz here nor will they have permission to step in’ she further told that her forefathers constructed the Eidgah here. ‘Now we are doing plotting here and no one can stop us from doing so’.
Miscreants have also destroyed a minaret of the Eidgah. It must not be out of place to mention that there is an ancient Qutub Shahi masjid near Eidgah, which is uninhabited. Local people are using the place to house cattle, while the graveyard land has been transformed into a toddy compound.
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