After a scuffle between two groups, a stampede-like situation erupted at the controversial dargah of the Persian Sufi godman Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer. The commotion occurred late Saturday night, the sixth night of the annual Ursa Major (festival to mark death anniversary of a Sufi fakir, usually held at his dargah)

According to police, Barelvi Muslims (followers of the Sunni school of Islam founded in Bareilly, UP in the late 19th century by an Afghan Pathan migrant named Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi) and Khadims (hereditary caretakers or custodians of the dargah claiming to be Chishti’s descendants) clashed. The police were able to bring the situation to a close.

There is a long-standing dispute between the Khadims and the Barelvis, the Sunni sect also known as Ahle Sunnat wal Jamaat. Despite the’moderate’ image peddled by mainstream media in comparison to the ‘fundamentalist’ Deobandis, Barelvis are quickly becoming the face of Muslim extremism with their ‘Sar Tan se Juda’ slogans against anyone accused of blasphemy of Islam.

The Barelvis visit the dargah to honour their leader Taju Shariya, a title bestowed upon Muhammad Akhtar Raza Khan Azhari, the great grandson of the movement’s founder, Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi.

There was an uproar in the dargah over such sloganeering in 2018. The Anjuman Committee also filed a complaint with the administration about this matter. Previously, an appeal was made by posting posters in various locations requesting that slogans be raised only in Chishti’s honour.

 

According to reports, security volunteers assigned to protect Khadims and the dargah fled the scene during the assault. The outnumbered Khadims were forced to seek refuge in a nearby mosque.

Amar Singh, the in-charge of the Dargah police station, stated that he arrived on the scene as soon as they received information about the sloganeering. Both parties were satisfied, but no party has yet to file the report.

The Ajmer dargah khadims are notorious for their involvement in crimes, as well as their Islamic supremacism and hatred of Hindus. These khadims, some of whom were also leaders in local Congress units at the time, were central to the heinous 1992 Ajmer rape-blackmail ring, in which hundreds of Hindu school and college girls were sexually exploited, forcing some to commit suicide and leaving others traumatised for life.

 

The Khadims who run Ajmer dargah were fully exposed last year for their anti-Hindu hate speech and genocidal threats to destroy the country. Using the fabricated Nupur Sharma controversy as a cover, several senior khadims, including Sarwar (a member of the banned terror organisation PFI), Gauhar, Salim, and Aadil Chishti, delivered provocative speeches, whipping Muslims.

Salman Chishti, a khadim, threatened to shoot Nupur with his own hands. Aadil Chishti, the son of Sarwar Chishti, the secretary of the dargah’s Anjuman Committee, launched a diatribe against Hindu Dharma, targeting deities such as Sri Hanuman, Sri Ganesh, and avatars of Bhagwan Vishnu.

Sarwar Chishti had delivered a hate speech dripping with Islamic supremacism in 2021, taunting Hindu visitors to the dargah.

Following the brutal murder of Udaipur tailor Kanhaiyalal by two Islamist terrorists, it was revealed that Khadim Gauhar Chishti had travelled to Udaipur to meet killer Riyaz Attari, just days after delivering a speech calling for the murder of Nupur Sharma. The khadim allegedly advised the killers to upload a video of their heinous crime in order to spread even more terror. The two murderers were on their way to Ajmer after killing Kanhaiyalal when they were apprehended by police. Gauhar Chishti was later apprehended in Hyderabad, where he was disguised. All of the defendants in this case had ties to the radical Barelvi outfit Daawat-e-Islami, which is based in Pakistan.

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