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Thursday, March 28, 2024

ASI bows down to land jihad, Muslims will continue using historical Buddhist cave as mazar

The cavern containing 3rd century BCE Ashoka edict in Bihar has not really been freed from Muslim encroachment as ASI has claimed. Muslims still retain a key to the entrance gate and will continue to offer worship inside the cave. The place is believed to be where Buddha stayed for a night after attaining enlightenment about which Emperor Ashoka had written an inscription.

One of Ashoka’s 13 minor rock edicts, the inscription in Sasaram has eight lines written in Brahmi in 232 BCE(Before Common Era). It was declared as a national monument in 1917 by the Archeological Survey of India(ASI). In 2005, Muslims encroached the cave and installed a gate, barring entrance to others. They claimed that it was the mazar of a Sufi who was buried there and converted it into a place of worship.

They also tried to erase the edict of Ashoka by coating it with white lime and ended up damaging the inscription. They used a green cloth with Islamic phrases to cover the edict and erase any trace of Buddhism from the cave. They also started organising the Urs festival every year and built a dargha near the naturally formed cave encroaching its roof.

In 2008, the encroachment was brought to the ASI’s attention and it wrote to the Rohtas district administration seeking to remove it. It also put up a sign board identifying it as a protected monument detailing its historical importance and Buddhist religious nature. But Muslims simply removed the board and started spreading a story that a Sufi saint lived in the cave, died there and was buried inside.

Met with resistance to remove the encroachment, the district administration had reached out to the home ministry of state for directions. Swarajya reports BJP leaders alleging that Nitish Kumar who held the Home Ministry portfolio at that time directed the Rohtas district administration to not bother with ASI’s request.

From 2008 to 2018 ASI wrote nearly 20 letters to Rohtas district administration requesting to remove the encroachments all of which were disregarded. The issue attained media limelight in September 2022 when a Hindi media reported it and BJP took up protests against the district administration condemning it’s negligence.

It appears that with no choice left, lest it becomes a political issue, Nitish Kumar government ordered the district administration to recover the cavern. But Muslims as usual disregarded the authorities and refused to leave the property. The district administration seems to have come to an understanding with them to suppress the issue for now.

ASI shared photos of the edict and tweeted that Markazi Muharram Committee, custodians of the dargah, handed over one of the two keys to the entrance gate. It led everyone to believe that the encroachments had been removed and the cavern restored to its original state. But the Hindustan Times report, which quoted the District Magistrate reveals the truth.

DM Dharmendra Kumar said that one key to the entrance gate would remain with the ASI while the other will be with the Muslims who would offer worship at “another shrine made inside the cave”. The ASI would just care for the rock inscription. It is clear that Muslims continue to encroach and defile the cavern and ASI is as powerless as any other government body when it comes to standing upto Muslim atrocities.

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