New Delhi: On November 3 and 4, the Gujarat high court heard petitions filed by eight Muslim residents of Gir Somnath challenging the demolition of the Pir Ahmed Shah Dargah.Roshan Banu was dejected beyond measure. “Another dargah under debris. They want to squeeze out Muslims and everything linked to Islam from Gir Somnath,” said the partially-blind resident of the district’s Prabhan Patan area. Banu lost his eyesight due to old age and today, she said, she is glad to have not been able to see the demolition of the dargah.Local Muslims who offer obeisance there have claimed that a 14th-century Persian inscription linked to the dargah and an old gate were demolished without due process, and that the site was being repurposed for Hindu devotees under Somnath Corridor project, erasing the shrine’s historical and religious existence.Representing the petitioners, senior advocate Anand Yagnik argued that the historic religious site was being demolished without following the legal procedures governing waqf property, land acquisition and protected monuments. Series of demolition of Islamic shrinesThe plea also questioned the district collector’s interim appointment of a mutavalli (caretaker), who gave a no-objection certificate for the transfer of the property without consulting the dargah’s trustees, who are part of a consolidated trust.“Mutavalli alone signed a resolution allowing the property to be acquired by the state government for a certain amount of compensation. His application for the sale of the property was immediately approved by the state’s Waqf Board. The entire process was in violation of the acquisition laws as well as the Waqf Act, which strongly prohibits sale of any waqf property,” Yagnik submitted in the high court.The petitioners further submitted that the inscription and the site were protected monuments under Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), under different laws since 1904. “Without obtaining permission from ASI, the ancient structure was demolished and the locals recovered the inscription from the rubble. The district collector was issued a notice by ASI for the unauthorised demolition,” Yagnik said in court.Photo: By arrangementBeyond the Pir Ahmed Shah Dargah, the Gir Somnath district has crafted for itself a recent case history of demolishing dargahs.In September 2024, a large police deployment accompanied bulldozers and excavators into Prabhas Patan, near the Somnath temple. By the end of the exercise, nine Islamic religious structures and 47 mostly Muslim-owned houses in the Veraval area of Gir Somnath district had been demolished. Also read: Supreme Court Refrains From Passing Status Quo Order on Gujarat Demolition DriveThe administration described the operation as an “anti-encroachment drive” to clear government land. According to the district administration, the land covered approximately 102 acres. Residents, however, disputed the authorities’ claims over the land and the legality of the demolitions. The demolition affected families who had lived in the area for generations and devotees who visited the shrines. Several historic shrines, including the Haji Mangrol Dargah, Pir Silar Shah Dargah, Garib Shah Dargah and Jafar Muzaffar Dargah, were bulldozed. Locals told The Wire that the Haji Mangrol Shah Dargah was part of the erstwhile Junagadh state’s revenue records as early as 1924. In its ground report in 2025, The Wire had documented the consequences of the demolitions for local Muslims, including the displacement of families and the loss of access to shrines that had been part of their religious lives. Patterns, procedures, petitionsThe latest dispute concerning the Pir Ahmed Shah Dargah in Prabhas Patan, began on August 19, 2026, with demolitions around 3 am, according to the petition filed by Malang Ismail Husen and others. They described the dargah as a centuries-old religious site with a Persian stone inscription dating back to 1543, connected to Sultan Ahmed Shah. The petition set out a string of events prior to the demolition. After the death of trustee Salimsha Dadasha in 2024, the petitioners alleged, the district administration pressured his son, Dadasha Salimsha, to seek a position in the trust and facilitate the transfer of the property to the state for the Somnath Corridor project. They further alleged that a meeting was held on August 14, 2026, and that applications seeking permission to transfer the property were made without the consent of all the relevant trustees and stakeholders.According to the petition, the Gujarat State Waqf Board granted permission for the project on August 18, 2026. The dargah was demolished in the early hours of August 19. The petitioners have alleged that the sub-divisional magistrate, mamlatdar (taluka-level administrative officer) and local police were present during the operation. They said the historic inscription was recovered by members of the community later, while graves and other structures associated with the dargah were also desacralised.An additional affidavit filed by Gohel Basir Kasam on October 22, 2026, posed questions on the authority of the people who purportedly consented to the transfer of the Dargah property. The affidavit also referred to correspondence with the Gujarat state archaeology department. Photo: By arrangementSpeaking to The Wire, Basir said that in a response dated September 8, 2026, the department indicated that it had not received documents from the Collector concerning the demolition of the dargah and the site of the inscription. “The situation that has emerged concerning the historic Mazar of Pir Ahmadshah raises several serious questions. If this Mazar is a site of historical and religious significance, it is the government’s responsibility to adhere to the laws and regulations governing its preservation. My question is: is it appropriate to damage historical heritage in the name of development? Have all due legal processes been followed in this matter?” Basir asked.He also said that petitioners do not wish to level baseless allegations regarding the government’s intentions; however, they explicitly demand a transparent inquiry into the entire affair, the disclosure of relevant documents, and accountability regarding the loss of the Dargah. “Our struggle is not against any specific government or religion. It is a fight for the protection of historical heritage, justice, and the rule of law” he said.Basir also said that there has been legal action against him in connection with this matter. “However, filing a petition is a constitutional rights and seeking justice through the courts should never be treated as an offence. We believe that every citizen has the right to raise concerns about the protection of historical and religious heritage. Our intention has always been to seek justice through lawful means” he said.Muslim heritage in Hindu pilgrimage landscapeThe Somnath Temple was not always as major a pilgrimage and tourism destination as it is today; the push to designate it as a Hindu pilgrimage site has been underway in recent decades. The area’s political and administrative significance predates the recent Somnath Corridor project. On August 14, 2012, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, then Gujarat chief minister, had announced the creation of a separate district named Gir Somnath, to be carved out of Junagadh. The district formally came into existence a year later on August 15, comprising the coastal talukas of Veraval, Sutrapada, Talala, Una and Kodinar. The government presented the move as an administrative measure that would bring public offices closer to residents of the coastal region. It also gave the Somnath temple and its surrounding territory a distinct administrative and overwhelmingly Hindu identity.Also read: Ignoring Courts, Gujarat Authorities Demolish Islamic Shrines, Several Houses; Locals Say Land Claimed by Shree Somnath TrustIn February 2017, the Gujarat government had sought Rs 262 crore from the Union tourism ministry under the PRASAD scheme for infrastructure development at and around Somnath. The first phase, estimated at Rs 102 crore, included proposals for parking, water treatment, sewerage, solid waste management and other tourist facilities.Yagnik, representing the Pir Ahmed Shah Dargah, believes that the entire ruckus is unfolding purely for one purpose: to disallow all dargahs from existing in the vicinity of the Somanth Temple.“They plan to wipe them out. I am Anand Yagnik, a Hindu. The Somnath temple is a temple of significance for me because I am a Shaivite. For years together, I’ve been regularly attending the temple. They say that the Somnath Corridor will help pilgrims to come to strengthen their faith. But my devotion to Somnath Bhagwan cannot be at the cost of the devotion of others,” Yagnik told The Wire.“I am very clear about that. They are using state instrumentalities to revive their [political] agenda and corporate houses are helping them,” he said, adding that the same hidden agenda can be seen in the case of Babri, Mathura and Somnath. “The Archaeological Survey of India has been issuing notices after notices that you cannot demolish structures without prior notice, I have 2-3 of such notices,” he noted.Yagnik also pointed out how the Gujarat Waqf Board is sold out to the state government and was not paying heed to how Islamic structures are being hollowed out and converted across Gujarat.The demolitions in Gir Somnath are part of a wider campaign that the Gujarat government had publicly defended. On February 21, 2024, then Minister of State for Home Harsh Sanghavi had told the Gujarat assembly that the state government had demolished 108 Islamic shrines across Gujarat, adding that the ‘anti-encroachment drive’ had reached Gir Somnath, among other districts. On March 28, 2023, chief minister Bhupinder Patel too had defended demolitions in Bet Dwarka and Gandhvi, where many of the affected homes belonged to Muslim fishermen. He had said the government would not tolerate “illegal activity” along Gujarat’s 1,600-km coastline and that the demolition drive would continue in the name of security and public welfare. These statements show that the demolitions along Gujarat’s coastline were not simply isolated land-clearance exercises. Senior political leaders have publicly made them part of the government’s wider campaign. Under the garb of development directives, they have often automatically labeled Muslim homes and Islamic shrines as encroachments and move JCBs to flatten mosques, mazaars and Muslim homes, in a bid to Hinduise and homogenise heritage and histories in the BJP-ruled state.