An "illegally" constructed mazar, which stood for decades on the campus of Government Doon Medical College and Hospital here, has been demolished, officials said on Saturday, even as the state Waqf board claimed it to be a legal structure.

The city administration demolished the structure using two JCB excavators on Friday night in the presence of police after sealing the area, an official from the Kotwali police station said.

A Rishikesh resident had lodged a complaint against the mazar on the hospital campus on the CM Helpline portal, officials said. The action followed after an examination of the documents related to the structure showed it was illegal, they said.

There were also complaints about the structure causing inconvenience to the movement of people visiting the hospital, which already suffered from space crunch.

Sources said the 'khadim' or caretaker of the mazar encouraged patients and their attendants coming to the hospital to offer prayers at the mazar for their recovery.

The hospital administration had also written to the Uttarakhand government demanding its removal, officials said.

A drive to demolish illegal mazars has been going on in the state for the past nearly two years.

Sources in the state Waqf board, however, claimed that the mazar was legal. They also termed the action one-sided in which the board was not taken into confidence.

Claiming that the mazar was 100 years old, Uttarakhand Waqf Board chairman Shadab Shams told PTI that it was built over the mortal remains of a sufi saint named Baba Kamaal Shah.

"The structure was registered with the Waqf board. I have raised the matter with the chief minister (Pushkar Singh Dhami), who assured me that he would look into it," Shams said.

Reacting to the demolition, state Congress vice-president Suryakant Dhasmana said, "While the government has the authority to take action against anything that is illegal, the manner in which the mazar was demolished overnight shows they (government) only want to spread hatred under some excuse or the other." “The government can either demolish mazars or take action against madrasas, and nothing else,” he added. As per sources, the mazar had been standing inside the hospital campus from the time before Uttarakhand gained statehood in 2000.

“It was under the Waqf Board, and the board alone can say whether it was illegal,” Dhasmana said.

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