The November 2024 violence in Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal was “pre-planned” by Samajwadi Party MP Zia-ur-Rahman Barq, MLA Iqbal Mehmood’s son Suhail Iqbal and members of the Shahi Jama Masjid’s management committee, The Indian Express quoted a judicial commission as having alleged in a report on Wednesday.

The three-member judicial panel, which had been set up to investigate the violence, cleared the police in the matter. The report, submitted in August 2025, was tabled in the Assembly on Wednesday.

The violence left five persons dead, with locals alleging that four of them were killed in police firing.

The violence had broken out on November 24, 2024, after a group of Muslims objected to a survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid in Chandausi town of Sambhal. The survey had been ordered in a suit claiming that the mosque had been built in 1526 by Mughal ruler Babar on the site of an ancient Hindu temple.

In its report, the investigation committee headed by former Allahabad High Court judge Justice Devendra Kumar Arora alleged that the circumstances preceding the violence indicated that the gathering on November 24 was “well-planned” and not spontaneous, The Indian Express reported.

The panel alleged that the violence was “primarily the result of abetment” by Barq, Iqbal and several persons associated with the masjid’s management, linking it to what it described as “political ambitions and an attempt to retain influence and control over the mosque”, the newspaper reported.

The commission also claimed that four of the five persons who died during the violence were not killed in police firing, The Indian Express reported. It said that firearm injuries could have been caused by .315 bore weapons and that there was no evidence that the police personnel present at the spot had that type of gun.

The persons appeared to have been killed in alleged cross-firing among miscreants in the crowd, the panel said. It identified the alleged miscreants as members of “local Turk and Pathan groups”, the newspaper added.

In June 2025, a chargesheet was filed against Barq and 22 others in a case. He has been accused of inciting the crowd by giving allegedly provocative speeches.

The police claimed that they had found that allegedly inflammatory speeches and incitement to violence led to the clashes, which resulted in arson, the throwing of stones and damage to public and private property.

Barq has denied the allegations, stating he was in Bengaluru at the time of the clashes.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

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