A curfew has been imposed in parts of a city in India’s western state of Maharashtra after Hindu groups demanded the removal of the tomb of Aurangzeb, a 17th-Century Mughal emperor, sparking violence on Monday night.
Vehicles were set on fire and stones were thrown in the Mahal area of Nagpur city.
Police say the situation is now under control and are appealing to people to keep the peace.
The tomb of Aurangzeb, who died more than 300 years ago, has in recent years become a political flashpoint amid growing calls for its removal by hardline Hindu groups.
It is located about 500km (311 miles) from Nagpur in the state’s Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district, which was earlier called Aurangabad after the emperor.
Monday’s violence broke out after two Hindu organisations, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, burnt the emperor’s effigy and chanted slogans demanding the removal of his tomb, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis told the state assembly.
This sparked rumours that some religious symbols had been desecrated. Fadnavis said this led to violence that looked like “a well-planned attack”.
He said after evening prayers, a crowd of 250 Muslim men gathered and started shouting slogans. “When people started saying they would set vehicles on fire, police used force,” he added.
More than 50 people have been detained and 33 policemen were injured in the incident, Nagpur police commissioner Ravinder Singal told ANI news agency.
Shops and businesses in the central areas of Nagpur remain closed and security has been tightened across the city.
Meanwhile, opposition parties have criticised the state’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government saying “law and order in the state has collapsed”.
The trigger for this week’s violence has been a recent Bollywood film about Sambhaji – a Maratha ruler who clashed with Aurangzeb but lost – and its graphic depiction of him being tortured.
The movie has “ignited people’s anger against Aurangzeb”, Fadnavis told the state assembly on Tuesday.
The issue has been making headlines in the state for days with politicians from Hindu nationalist parties criticising Aurangzeb and calling for his tomb to be removed.
The protesters were also angered earlier this month when Abu Azmi, a regional politician, said that Aurangzeb was not a “cruel administrator” and had “built many temples”.
Azmi also said the emperor’s reign saw India’s borders reaching Afghanistan and present-day Myanmar, and the country was referred to as a golden bird, with its gross domestic product accounting for a quarter of the world’s GDP.
He later told a court his remarks were misinterpreted, but he was suspended from Maharashtra’s state assembly and an investigation was ordered against him.
In 2022, Aurangzeb’s name was trending on social media when the dispute over a mosque – built on the ruins of the Vishwanath temple, a grand 17th-Century Hindu shrine destroyed on Aurangzeb’s orders – broke out as a court ordered a survey to ascertain if the mosque had been built over what was originally a Hindu temple.
His tomb was shut for visitors after a regional politician questioned “the need for its existence” and called for its destruction.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi also spoke about “Aurangzeb’s atrocities and “his terror” at an event in Varanasi that year. “He tried to change civilisation by the sword. He tried to crush culture with fanaticism,” Modi said.
Aurangzeb was the sixth emperor of the Mughal kingdom who ruled India for nearly five decades from 1658 to 1707.
He is often described as a devout Muslim who lived the life of an ascetic, but was ruthless in his pursuit of expanding the empire, imposing strict sharia laws and discriminatory taxes.
He was accused of razing Hindu temples, though some critics point out he also built a few.
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