The military regime has sealed off a historic quake-hit mosque in the compound of the central police station in Sagaing town, according to the local Muslim community.
Ownership of the land is disputed between the mosque trustees and the local police.
“Over the past four or five years, police have kept telling us to leave, saying our mosque squats on the police station compound,” said a local Muslim who asked to remain anonymous. “But we were able to stay by sending requests to the home affairs and religious affairs ministries.”
Gattan Mosque was commissioned in 1902 under colonial rule by a major from the Burma Military Police Force, who had bought the entire land where the police station and mosque now sit, according to the board of mosque’s trustees. It was only a decade later that he donated part of it for a police station.
But later the police applied for ownership of the entire land, labeling the mosque a squat, he said.
The mosque sustained some damage in the March 28 earthquake, and police forced the mosque’s board of trustees to sign a pledge that it would be removed.
“The trustees signed out of fear. We got the eviction notice a few days ago, and when the deadline elapsed they sealed off the mosque,” the local Muslim told The Irrawaddy.
The Muslim community now wants to submit a petition to the Home Affairs Ministry because they have strong evidence of their ownership. If their petition is denied, they plan to ask the authorities to build a new mosque somewhere else.
The Religious Affairs Ministry has so far permitted only one of over 130 mosques wrecked by the earthquake in Mandalay, Sagaing, and Naypyitaw to be restored. Applications to rebuild or repair the others remain pending.
