44 detained after protest to rename Qutub Minar as 'Vishnu Stambh'

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Jai Bhagwan Goyal, who is also the international president of the United Hindu Front and the national president of the Rashtrawadi Shiv Sena, alleged he was kept under house arrest in Shahdara by police since Tuesday morning.

Members of two fringe right-wing groups were detained on Tuesday near the Qutub Minar, where they gathered to recite the Hanuman Chalisa claiming that the 13th century monument was originally a Vishnu temple, and demanded that it be renamed “Vishnu Stambh” and opened to Hindus for prayers.

Members of right-wing organisations outside the Qutub Minar, on Tuesday..

They could not enter the monument complex, and continued their demonstration amid heavy police presence near the nearby Bhool Bhulaiya.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Jai Bhagwan Goyal, who is also the international president of the United Hindu Front and the national president of the Rashtrawadi Shiv Sena, alleged he was kept under house arrest in Shahdara by police since Tuesday morning. “We had informed the area police commissioner about our programme to chant Hanuman Chalisa, but the ACP and SHO arrived at my house around 7am with around 50 policemen and put me under house arrest,” alleged Goyal.

Deputy commissioner of police (south) Benita Mary Jaiker said that no permission was granted by the police for the gathering outside the Qutub Minar complex. She said that 50 people participated in the demonstration, and that those present at the gathering belonged to United Hindu Front and Rashtrawadi Shiv Sena.

“Of the 50 demonstrators, 44 were detained under section 65 of the Delhi Police Act. All of them were released before 6 pm,” said DCP Jaiker, adding that no first information report (FIR) was registered.

Goyal claimed that the Qutub Minar was originally a temple, and that there were several idols in the complex. “Qutub-uddin-Aibak made the Qutub Minar in 1100 AD by altering our Vishnu Stambh and breaking our Sai, Hindu, Jain temples. He wrote Qutub Minar on the pillar. Even today, idols of our gods and goddesses are still a part of the complex which is clear proof of the fact our Hindu temples were broken to make Qutub Minar,” said Goyal.

“We have given a memorandum of our demands to Union home minister Amit Shah and tourism minister G Kishan Reddy,” he said.

According to historians, and information mentioned in the Delhi gazetteer, Qutub-uddin-Aibak started the construction of the Qutub Minar in around 1200 AD as a tower of victory. It was completed in 1220 by Illtumish, Aibak’s son-in-law and successor. In the 14th century, Ferozshah Tughlaq made a few additions to the structure, and later the British also made some additions to the complex in the 19th century.

Officials of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which maintains the heritage monument, said no one entered the Qutub Minar complex on Tuesday, and added that it had informed the police in advance as a precautionary step. “No incident took place inside the Qutub Minar complex and neither was anyone able to enter the complex. There was adequate police presence outside the complex. We cannot control what people do outside the complex,” said an official who asked not to be named.

Author and historian Swapna Liddle said the Qutub Minar was a heritage monument, and should be left untouched.

“Many of these ideas pertaining to the Qutub Minar’s history that people now have can be debated. Even after the Mughal rule, during the Maratha or British rule in Delhi, no one ever thought about these things (the monument being a temple). Why are we suddenly raising this? If this was a history that people had remembered for so many centuries, and it bothered them, they would have done something about it earlier,” Liddle said.