New Delhi: “Where do I offer my respects to my dead brother? Even his shroud became visible when they demolished graves,” says a local from Mathura’s Manoharpura.On April 26, 2026, Muslims in Mathura’s Manoharpura woke up to a rude shock when they found graves damaged, boundary structures destroyed and burial shrouds protruding from the earth in Ahl-e-Muslimeen Kabristan.Among those affected were families who allege that the graves of their fathers, grandfathers and relatives were disturbed after JCBs working under the supervision of local authorities entered the cemetery late at night – a calculated strategy, according to locals.Nine graves were desecrated at the Ahl-e-Muslimeen Kabristan, which has existed at the site since 1909. Six trees, 20 boundary fencing pillars, greenery and landscaping area were also damaged by the JCBs, which arrived in the middle of the night on the orders of Mathura Nagar Nigam’s Assistant Municipal Commissioners.But local Muslims view this as a tool to tighten the larger atmosphere in the state.Grief and grievance redressalGraves were uprooted in a manner that revealed the inner shrouds and skeletons of those buried in the graveyard, leaving local Muslims overwhelmed by both grief and anger.The graveyard is a gazetted Waqf Notified Property named as Waqf No. 74 and Waqf No. 858, as per documentation of the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board. Its certificate was renewed in December 2023. Residents say the cemetery has served local Muslim families for generations and contains the graves of parents, grandparents and other relatives.Tausif Sheikh, a local whose uncle’s grave was desecrated in the incident feels absolutely humiliated. “Muslims have no value, dead or alive. Even our graves carry no respect from the administration. We buried our dead in a property validated by the Waqf board and yet we faced this theft of space. The shroud was also pulled out from the graves,” Sheikh said in anger.Concrete slabs covering a drain outside Mathura’s Ahl-e-Muslimeen Kabristan in Uttar Pradesh’s Manoharpura were demolished and thrown into its boundary. Photo by arrangement.Tajuddin, a victim of the states’s JCB bustle is pained at the desecration of his grandmother’s sister’s grave. “We have been using this graveyard for more than a decade. It must be reinstated as soon as possible. This is an inhuman act” he told The Wire.Angry and grief-stricken residents and members of the committee running the Ahl-e-Muslimeen Kabristan filed a complaint through Uttar Pradesh’s Integrated Grievance Redressal System (IGRS), on which the Mathura-Vrindavan Municipal Corporation initiated an inquiry.Undoing the damage doneThe complaints via the IGRS triggered a series of communications between residents, municipal authorities and the contractor involved in the demolition work. Documents reviewed by The Wire show that on May 8, 2026, Mathura-Vrindavan Municipal Corporation formally acknowledged damage to approximately nine graves inside the cemetery. In a letter issued in response to the IGRS complaint, the Municipal Health Officer recorded that around nine graves had been damaged and directed compensation at the rate of Rs 100 per grave, effectively placing the value of damage to the nine graves at Rs 900.The document further instructed Nature Green Tools & Machines Pvt Ltd, the contractor, to compensate the graveyard committee accordingly. For residents who had spent days documenting the destruction and filing complaints, the letter represented the administration’s first formal acknowledgment that graves had indeed been damaged.Letter from the Junior Engineer (Water), Mathura-Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh, saying the demolitions were by the contractor and were a mistake.On May 26, municipal authorities carried out a separate damage assessment of the cemetery premises. According to this assessment, six trees and around twenty boundary fencing pillars had been damaged during the operation. Officials calculated compensation of Rs 600 for the trees and Rs 2,000 for the damaged pillars, bringing the total assessed compensation for these losses to Rs 2,600.Records reviewed by The Wire further show that two cheques dated May 28, 2026 were subsequently issued in favour of the Kabristan Committee. One cheque, amounting to Rs 900, corresponded to compensation for the damaged graves, while another cheque for Rs 2,600 covered the damage assessed to the cemetery’s trees and fencing structures.A subsequent communication dated June 9 from the contractor confirms that compensation was disbursed in accordance with directions issued by the municipal corporation. The letter references both the May 8 and May 26 municipal communications and records compliance with the compensation orders.Together, the documents establish a paper trail that begins with residents’ complaints and ends with the administration and contractor acknowledging damage and issuing compensation. Yet for many residents, the official response only deepened the sense of hurt.“What is the value of a grave? They have calculated compensation for trees, fencing and graves. But how do you compensate a family whose dead were disturbed. So throwing a hundred rupees at us undoes the damage they have caused, the violation they did or allowed to happen?” Sheikh asks.History of harassmentAt present, the graveyard testifies the trauma that the skeletons endured. For many residents, the damage caused at the Ahl-e-Muslimeen Kabristan was not just a administrative lapse. It is part of a pattern of marginalisation that Muslims in Mathura say they have experienced in recent years.The graveyard has repeatedly found itself at the centre of disputes. In previous years, residents and graveyard committee members raised concerns about encroachments around the cemetery, the establishment of a garbage pick-up point near its entrance and attempts to alter the character of the land, they say, has long served as a burial ground for local residents.The Ahl-e-Muslimeen Kabristan has a pile of garbage outside it owing to the nearby ‘collection point’. Locals say the poor civic facilities are on account of the administration targeting their religious identity. Photo: Tarushi AswaniThe latest controversy also unfolds against a backdrop of growing anxiety among Muslims in Mathura. In recent years, the district has witnessed campaigns targeting Muslim-owned businesses, demolition drives affecting Muslim neighbourhoods and renewed political mobilisation around the Shahi Idgah dispute. Community members say these developments have fostered a sense of insecurity, with places of worship, homes, livelihoods and now even burial grounds becoming sites of contestation.Also read: Erasing Homes, Jobs and Places of Worship: The RSS-BJP Agenda to Marginalise Mathura’s Muslims“We understand everything that is happening. The way we are being harassed to give up on our community claims, waqf claims. How come a contractor on government duty is flattening the graveyard and all we get as a response is issuance of cheques worth Rs 2,600? Where we pray, how we pray, what we eat, what we sell and now our burial grounds, everything is under state scrutiny. We are, therefore, documenting all of this, and filing claims with concerned governments departments,” Shakir Hussain, a member of the Kabristan committee told The Wire.Several residents who spoke to The Wire said the compensation offered after the graves were damaged reinforced their belief that Muslim concerns are treated differently by authorities. While officials have issued payments as compensation for damage caused during municipal work, locals said the matter extended far beyond monetary loss.“Today it is our graves. Yesterday it was our homes and shops. Tomorrow we don’t know what will be left,” said another member of the committee. “The issue is that a place where our dead were buried was entered and damaged despite its legal status,” the member added.For community members, the controversy surrounding the Ahl-e-Muslimeen Kabristan has therefore become about more than hurt over damaged graves. It has become another chapter in what they describe as a long-running struggle to preserve Muslim spaces in a city where questions of land, history and identity have increasingly become politically charged.