Team Clarion
NEW DELHI – A Hindu woman was forced to cancel the sale of a plot to a member of the Muslim community after some residents protested the sale by citing the religious identity of the purchaser in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly district.
In Bareilly’s Biharipur Khatriya area, a widow woman named Jyoti Seth decided to sell 250 square feet plot to a Muslim man Tasleem and received advance payment. The area is nearby a Dargah.
The sale did not go well with some Hindu residents as the buyer was a Muslim. They have protested and submitted a complaint with the district magistrate stirring tension in the area. According to reports, the DM even started investigating the matter.
Seth, who cancelled the property deal, said he had sold the plot out of compulsion and now cancelled it. She asked the opposing residents to come up with Hindu customers.
“It’s my property and it’s upon me whether I should sell it or not. I will not sell it now. These people should sell it and come up with Hindu customers. There will be Hindu brotherhood. I will even reduce the rate. I will do what I can,” she said while talking to Hindi daily Dainik Bhashkar.
Seth is living in the colony for 43 years and her husband died three years ago. She said that she has not any issue with residents.
The residents, who opposed the property deal with Muslims, described the sale as “Land Jihad” and “blackmailing”. They shouted slogans “Land Jihad won’t be Allowed” and “Blackmailing will not be allowed”.
A resident Anil Muni claimed that non-Hindus are eying the Hindu properties and Hindus are also not thinking about the future in greed. He cited the different culture of the buyer for opposing the sale.
Even years ago, such controversy was created when there was property deal between Hindus and Muslims in the area. The deal was cancelled after some residents opposed it.
Another resident claimed that the sale of properties to Muslims in the colony will threaten their religious practices and disturb peace.
This is not new incident when a Muslim is being denied of properties on the basis of religion. In the recent years, several such incidents were reported from Uttar Pradesh and other states.
Earlier, Muslims used to complain about not getting house on rent in the big cities such as Mumbai and Delhi. The landlord was not loudly saying that the house will not be given to Muslims. It was done without any pronouncement. Now, the new phenomena has developed that residents came out to protest and submit complaint with the administration demanding the denial of house to members of the Muslims community.
In December last year, protest broke out in Moradabad’s posh TDI City housing society after a house in the Hindu-majority colony was sold to a Muslim doctor by her fellow Hindu doctor. Women and other residents from the society, which houses around 450 Hindu families, demanded cancellation of the registration, saying they “feared the sale could lead to demographic changes and spark a trend of Hindu families leaving their apartments”.
