Bareilly's Hindus, Muslims rebuild shrines and peace

By Asit Srivastava, IANS,

Bareilly : If the recent riots made Bareilly cry for peace, the trouble-torn district in western Uttar Pradesh is now witnessing a rare show of communal harmony now -- Muslims taking up the construction of a damaged temple and Hindus joining hands to restore a mazar (mausoleum).

The Hanuman temple, popularly known as the Bajrangi Mandir, and the Peer Bhai Meer Zafar Ali's mausoleum -- both situated a few metres away in Kohadapeer area in Bareilly, some 250 km from Lucknow -- were damaged March 2 during communal violence.

"Hindus are restoring the mazar and Muslims the temple just to give a befitting reply to those who want to widen the Hindu-Muslim rift for vested interests," Vikas Sharma, a Kohadapeer resident, told IANS on the telephone from here.

"In our opinion, those who damaged the two religious places cannot be of any religion. They were just anti-social elements, who have nothing to do with Hinduism or Islam. Our ongoing cooperation for restoring the religious places would definitely counter communal forces to a considerable extent," added Sharma (40), who is an English lecturer at a college here.

Kohadapeer, a Muslim-dominated locality has over 3,000 registered voters. Majority of the people of the locality had their commercial establishments reduced to ashes during communal violence.

Restoration work for the temple and the mausoleum has been undertaken by the funds raised by Kohadapeer residents.

"We all wanted to forget the ugly episode, but actually did not know how to do it," Afroz Khan (65), who has a jewellery business, told IANS.

"It all started out of a conversation among some elders of the locality. After the curfew was relaxed, some elders from both the communities met at a dhaba (eating joint) and shared their painful experiences about the riots. When one of our friends told us that the district administration would soon be restoring the religious places, we decided why not do it ourselves by contributing funds," he added.

It's not that only people from the affluent class have contributed money for the restoration of the two religious places. Even street-vendors and those not from well-off families have chipped in for the noble cause.

"Vegetable vendors, daily-wage labourers are all contributing their bit for the restoration exercise. Though financial constraints did not allow them to give money, they are working as labourers in the restoration exercise," said Hasan Fatma (52), whose cloth shop was set ablaze during communal violence.

The restoration work started two days ago and will be completed in a day or two, locals say.

Though night curfew in the trouble-hit areas of Bareilly district still continues, the authorities have lifted all restrictions on vehicular movement.

A communal clash over the passage of a Barawafat procession followed by sporadic arson March 2 led to curfew in several parts of the district. Till now, nearly 400 people have been arrested for their alleged role in the communal violence.