The Yogi Adityanath government on Friday served a demolition notice on a mosque in Kushinagar, alleging illegal construction and encroachment and giving its management 15 days to remove it.

A member of the management committee of the Idgah Masjid, located in Garahiya Chintaman village, 350km east of Lucknow, said the panel had documents that refuted these allegations.

However, he said, the mosque authorities had called a meeting and, given the situation "these days", might decide to carry out the demolition themselves.

The Adityanath government has in recent months demolished a mosque elsewhere in Kushinagar, got a mosque in Sambhal surveyed controversially following allegations that it stood over a destroyed temple, and accused several mosques of power theft.

Jitendra Singh Srinet, tehsildar for the Tamkuhi area of Kushinagar district, said the Idgah Masjid had been built about 15 years ago without formal approval for its plan, and that it encroached on gram sabha (public) land.

"We have served three notices on the committee since January. Our bulldozers will bring the mosque down on April 8 if the committee doesn’t remove it by then," Srinet told local reporters.

Arvind Kishore Shahi, a resident of the locality, had moved an RTI plea in September asking the revenue department certain questions about the mosque. The reply he received said the structure had been built illegally and stood on land owned by the panchayat.

Hafiz Sabir Ali, a member of the mosque management committee, told local reporters: "The situation is not conducive and so I wouldn't like to comment on the government’s action."

However, he added: "We had told the authorities in a written reply that Mohammad Islam, former panchayat chief, had allocated this land for the mosque after taking permission from senior officers in Lucknow 15 years ago.

"We have all the papers to prove our legal right over the structure and the land. But such arguments are not appreciated these days.

“We shall hold a meeting to discuss how we should remove our mosque from here. We have seen bulldozers razing our religious sites at other places in the state and cannot doubt the government’s intention. Let’s see how we bring our building down."

The government had pulled down a portion of the Madani Masjid in the Karmaha area of Hata in Kushinagar last November alleging it had been built without approval for its plan.

Responding to a petition filed by the mosque committee against the government’s action, the Supreme Court had asked the local administration why a contempt case should not be initiated against it.

Hearing another case earlier, the apex court had directed that no religious structure should be demolished without a notice being served and its management given 15 days to respond. Madani Masjid authorities had claimed that no such notice had been served on them.

They told the Supreme Court that the mosque stood on land owned by its management committee and that its plan had been approved by the local municipal authority.