Sambhal police on Monday claimed that they have enough evidence against the head of the Shahi Jama Masjid’s management committee to send him to jail.

Krishna Kumar Bishnoi, superintendent of police of Sambhal, said Zafar Ali was arrested for criminal conspiracy. “He had called the mob in front of the Jama Masjid on November 19 and November 24 when the survey of the shrine was underway,” he said.

Ali was arrested after a daylong interrogation at Kotwali police station on Sunday, a day before he was to travel to Lucknow to depose before the judicial commission probing the November 24 violence outside the mosque. He was produced before a local court and sent to judicial custody for 14 days on Sunday and shifted to Moradabad jail on Monday.

Ali, who had earlier alleged that Hindutva groups had provoked a Muslim mob into violence that day, was detained on Sunday after refusing to parrot a police-dictated statement before the commission, his family said, alleging “intimidation”.

On his way to the court, Ali told reporters that he would contest and win the case “because the police have implicated me without any evidence”.

“I was with the survey team and senior policemen inside the mosque when some policemen misbehaved with the people standing outside and then killed them (on November 24). The police didn’t want me to say all this to the judicial inquiry commission,” Ali claimed.

The clash between a mob and the police had broken out during a court-ordered survey of the mosque to ascertain whether it stood over the remains of a destroyed temple. Hindu petitioners had claimed that Mughal emperor Aurangzeb had demolished a temple and built the mosque at the site.

Ali had said four people had died in police firing but the police have claimed the deaths resulted from a gunfight between two rival groups within the mob.

A source close to Ali told this newspaper that his arrest was aimed at preventing him from testifying before the commission.

“We believe that a member of the commission gave the idea to the SIT and Sambhal police to arrest the head of the masjid committee to prevent him from recording his statement before the panel. It would have become obligatory for the commission to mention Ali’s statement and produce the electronic evidence furnished by him to support his claim that the police instigated the crowd and then opened fire on them. Therefore, they decided to arrest him,” the source said.

“Chief minister Yogi Adityanath has made it clear several times that he was against the mosque. He has appointed the commission to prove that whatever happened on November 24 was planned by the members of the mosque,” he added.

Lawyers’ strike

A section of lawyers in Sambhal district observed a one-day pen-down strike on Monday to protest the arrest of Ali, a “senior lawyer”.

Mohammad Nazar Qureshi, president of the Chandousi District Court Bar Association in Sambhal, told PTI: “All courts in Sambhal, Chandousi and Gunnaur remained closed today as part of the strike.”

“There was no FIR against Ali, yet he was sent to jail under unspecified charges. This is a wrongful act by the police,” Qureshi said. “We strongly oppose this action and will soon decide on our next course of action against the administration.”

Additional reporting by PTI