Overview
- The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation carried out demolition on Tuesday, June 2, 2026, removing parts of the Hazrat Syed Barkat Ali Shah Pir Baba Dargah after officials said trustees ignored notices and produced forged or insufficient ownership documents.
- Local residents and devotees maintain the shrine is decades old and say the demolition occurred before a scheduled court hearing, with political leaders accusing authorities of denying legal remedies.
- Officials say the land belongs to the state dairy and forest departments and gave differing estimates of the encroachment’s size, reporting figures that range from about 15,000 square feet to claims near 70,000 square feet.
- Authorities deployed large numbers of police, barricades and riot-control units to prevent violence after recent unrest during other demolitions, and officials reported no major law-and-order breakdown during the initial operation.
- The action follows earlier enforcement in 2017 and 2018, and it is likely to prompt legal challenges, political protests and further anti-encroachment drives in Aarey that will affect local devotees and residents who used the site.