Bhojshala dispute: ‘Focus should be on preventing communal flashpoints’

Indore: The Indore bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court on Friday took up the Bhojshala-Kamal Maula mosque dispute, with senior advocate AK Chitale pressing the court to look beyond property law and focus on preventing communal flashpoints at the contested site in Dhar district.Appearing before Justice Vijay Kumar Shukla and Justice Alok Awasthi on behalf of Antar Singh and six others, Chitale categorically said that this was not a conventional title dispute. The core problem, he argued, is administrative — specifically, what happens when Hindu and Muslim worship days coincide at the monument.Backing his submission with aerial photographs, maps and archival records, Chitale traced the site's contested history and walked the bench through the legal framework governing it, including Archaeological Survey of India's prayer schedule order. He pointed directly to Basant Panchami falling on a Friday as the trigger for recurring communal tension — and stressed that outside these overlapping days, the site remains largely peaceful.He proposed that alternative nearby locations may be designated for prayers on conflict days, rather than deploy city-wide security apparatus each time. He went further, floating the idea of a permanent institutional mechanism — a commission or consultative body comprising social workers and community representatives — to handle similar disputes nationally.Chitale also said that extended security deployments across Dhar during each flashpoint were neither sustainable nor necessary if a targeted, limited intervention can defuse the risk.The bench observed that the senior advocate intended to project that the disputed site should not become a stage for face-to-face confrontation. When such situations arise, an identified alternate venue should be made available to preserve communal harmony — that, the court noted, was the essence of his case.Justice Shukla also remarked on the constitutional dimension, noting that respecting all religions was not incidental but foundational to India's constitutional design. "That is the beauty of our Constitution," he said.Chitale's arguments will continue Saturday.