The Municipal Corporation of Delhi carried out the operation from late Tuesday, September 22, into early Wednesday under a heavy security deployment. Bulldozers and dumpers were brought to the site while police personnel were stationed along the road and in surrounding streets. Municipal officials said the structures targeted fell within the alignment of a road-widening project and that notices had been served before demolition.
Parts of the mosque, including upper sections, were brought down, while several nearby residential structures were also affected. The drive followed earlier clearance work on the same stretch, where authorities have been seeking to widen Road No. 320 and remove construction occupying public land.
The action drew objections from mosque representatives and the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen. AIMIM’s Delhi president Shoaib Jamai reached Shalimar Bagh during the operation and questioned why the demolition was being conducted around midnight. He alleged that residents and mosque representatives were not given sufficient opportunity to retrieve belongings before machinery moved in.
Mosque representatives also disputed the adequacy and timing of the notices. Madina Masjid president Movin Khan said the committee had sought clearer copies of documents so that it could prepare its response, but received successive notices warning that demolition would follow within 15 days. He said the committee had approached an appellate tribunal over the structure and maintained that legal proceedings concerning parts of the mosque had not fully ended.
The precise status of those mosque-specific proceedings could not be independently established from publicly available court records. However, a Delhi High Court judgment delivered on April 6 provided the wider legal framework for clearing encroachments along Road No. 320. The court permitted authorities to proceed with widening the road to 30 metres and allowed removal of unauthorised structures after occupants had been given time to vacate.
The judgment concerned a petition filed on behalf of occupants of land in Shalimar Bagh and Haiderpur who challenged the proposed road widening and sought protection from demolition. The court held that the land required for the project was public land and said the widening could not be delayed, citing access for ambulances, fire services, school buses and other traffic. The April judgment recorded the existing road at 19.5 metres wide and the disputed encroached strip at approximately 10.5 metres.
Court records show that the road is planned as a link between the GT Karnal Road corridor and the Outer Ring Road. The judges noted that one side of the stretch was constrained by a railway line, limiting the possibility of expanding the carriageway in that direction. The court directed the authorities to proceed in accordance with a 2016 approval for the corridor and said occupants could remain only until the expiry of the period fixed for vacating the affected properties.
That deadline was set no later than May 30. After its expiry, the judgment said authorities were at liberty to remove encroachments and unauthorised construction required for the expansion. It also directed Delhi’s government to consider, in accordance with law, whether ex gratia compensation should be granted to affected occupants.
The September operation nevertheless prompted criticism over the manner in which the mosque portion was demolished. Jamai called the late-night action unconstitutional and said opposition representatives were initially prevented from freely accessing the affected area. Mosque officials alleged that they had little time to remove religious books and other items. Those claims have not been independently verified.
Authorities maintained that the exercise was not directed at a religious institution as such, but formed part of the continuing clearance of structures obstructing the approved road alignment. The road-widening plan covers a stretch serving Max Super Speciality Hospital and other public facilities in the area.
Shalimar Bagh is represented in the Delhi Assembly by Chief Minister Rekha Gupta. The demolition therefore also became a political issue, with opposition figures demanding an explanation for the timing of the operation and alleging unequal treatment in enforcement against unauthorised construction.
