Majority community forces construction of mosque in Mendhar

Jammu, Mar 24—Curfew was clamped in the border town of Mendhar and Army was called on duty as violence erupted over the construction of a mosque.
The tension was aggravated when a mob of three to four thousand men from majority community forced its way on the disputed site and started work of the mosque.
Earlier, the already tense situation in the town turned violent today as people from majority community fought pitched battles while trying to enter a disputed site.
Several shots were fired by the police in a bid to stop the crowd from starting construction work on the site. Both sides indulged in stone pelting for close to an hour and around forty persons including 30 policemen were injured.
According to eye witnesses, all the efforts of the police to pacify the mob turned futile as people forced their way on the site and construction work was commenced as security men turned mute spectators.
A mehrab and a room were constructed as part of the mosque today and three to four hundred persons are still present at the site till last reports came in.
Adding fuel to the communal flare up, local MLA Javed Rana turned up with a large entourage and paid Namaz-I-nafal and also announced a grant of Rs 50000 for the construction of the mosque.
As per sources, the disputed site comprises of 14 Kanals and 7 marlas out of which ten kanals belong to one Mahesh Chander, who belongs to the minority Hindu community.
1 kanal and seven marlas of this land belongs to one Mohd Ibrahim and rest 3 kanals is state land.
Sources here revealed that this was basically a land dispute between two above said persons and has been given a communal touch with the purpose of grabbing the land.
As per reports, Deputy Commissioner Poonch Mohd Ramzan Thakkar, SSP Poonch Jagjit Kumar and Additional SP Tahir Bhat are camping in Mendhar to defuse the situation.