The Yogi Adityanath government seems keen on developing Sambhal as a pilgrimage site at a time when the Muslim-majority town has emerged as a new theatre of Hindutva politics, marked by a mosque-temple controversy, bloodshed and the periodic “discovery” of new shrines.
A political observer suggested that with early resolution unlikely for the court cases over the Shahi Idgah and Gyanvapi mosques in Mathura and Varanasi, the BJP might be looking for an alternative trigger for polarisation politics ahead of the early-2027 Assembly elections.
“The Muslim populations in Varanasi and Mathura are around 30 per cent. But Muslims make up 70 per cent of the population in Sambhal, and it’s easy for the BJP to create communal frenzy here,” he told The Telegraph, seeking anonymity.
While there’s been no official communication about declaring Sambhal, 400km northwest of Lucknow, as a pilgrim town, district magistrate Rajendra Pensiya dropped a hint on Saturday.
He told reporters he had formed a committee to formulate a proposal for a trust that would oversee the upkeep of all the temples and other Hindu religious places in the district. No other district in Uttar Pradesh has such a trust. Local BJP leaders had written to chief minister Adityanath last month asking that Sambhal be declared a pilgrimage site. Such a declaration will allow the government to spend heavily on pilgrimage infrastructure — from temples and pedestrian corridors to roads and lodges — and ban the sale of meat in the shrines’ neighbourhoods.
Sambhal came into the spotlight last November 24 when four people were killed outside the Shahi Jama Masjid. The violence was triggered by a survey of the mosque — demanded by Hindu petitioners — to establish whether it stood over the ruins of a Hindu temple, allegedly demolished by Mughal
emperor Aurangzeb.
The Sambhal administration was accused of standing and watching while some people chanted provocative slogans in the lead-up to the violence. Local people say the four victims died in police firing, but the police have blamed the shooting on rival groups within the mob.
Since then, the administration has been discovering one abandoned temple, or sacred well, after another in the district amid a whisper campaign by Hindutva groups that these were desecrated or destroyed during communal riots.
“We held a meeting on Friday and constituted a three-member committee. We have discovered several ancient religious sites in the town in the last few months and need to renovate and manage them,” Pensiya said.
He mentioned the Vijay Teerth, Surajkund Teerth and Ma Bhagwantpur Devi temples and said that some renovation was already under way.