Agra remains tense for the second day after local police refused to allow an RSS shakha to be held near the Taj Mahal, with the RSS activists threatening to break the law and organise the shakha at the designated place.

In a serious development that could send ripples of tension through the entire state, the Agra police prevented the RSS shakha to be held at the Pawan Dham colony near the Taj Mahal yesterday claiming that the place was disputed and even Muslims had been prevented from holding an 'Urs' at the spot.

The police claimed that there is 24-hour police presence on the disputed location since the past 6 months and there was no question of allowing a shakha to be held there till the dispute was resolved.

Angered with the non-cooperative attitude of the police, RSS workers are now staging a sit-in near the disputed spot demanding the removal of the police force from there and unconditional permission to hold a regular shakha at the spot.

Talking to India Today, an RSS volunteer said that if the RSS could not hold a shakha with impunity when the BJP is in both the state and the center then how other political parties could be expected to allow the organisation to conduct its activities freely.

Local BJP leader Ashvani Kumar Vashishth said that the RSS has been holding a daily shakha at the same spot in Pavan Dham colony for past several years. For the past few days, the shakha coordinator was not in town, so the shakha could not be held.

When the coordinator returned to Agra on Monday, he tried to hold a shakha but was prevented to do so by the police.

The Police also misbehaved with the coordinator and other RSS workers. Vashishth claimed that a sub-inspector also said that the RSS was training terrorists through these shakhas. This incident was reported to senior police officials but no action has been taken yet.

"He demanded to know if the RSS trains terrorists through its shakhas, then were former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, PM Narendra Modi and several other national leaders were terrorists. He said that such an attack on the RSS and its ideology did not take place in even in the time of SP/BSP or Congress," said Ashvani Kumar Vashishth.

Agra Cantonment MLA G S Dharmesh told India Today that this incident has been brought to the notice of CM Yogi Adityanath and action will be taken in this matter soon.

Explaining the police action, deputy superintendent of police Uday Raj Singh said that the disputed spot has been a center of contention for a long time and there is a strict ban on holding any public gathering on the spot without permission. A police contingent has been posted at this spot since the past six months and the same police force did not allow the shakha to be held at that place, which had earlier disallowed an 'urs' to be held there.

He said that at that time the Muslim community had claimed that the police was working with a Hindu agenda at the behest of the RSS and now the RSS is claiming that the Muslim community had stopped the shakha with the help of the police.

Singh said that this land is claimed to be that of a Muslim shrine by some, while others claim that there was no shrine there. This dispute is in the court and till the decision arrives on it, the police cannot allow any activity on the land.

Criticising the RSS for forcing the police to allow their shakha on the disputed land, UP Sarvdaleey Muslim Action Committee chairman Syed Irfan Salim said that some people have the misconception that if the BJP is in power in the state and center, they have become all powerful and can do whatever illegal activity they want. He said that if the police did not allow an urs to take place at the disputed land, then why would it allow an RSS shakha at the same place.

Salim said that there were documentary proofs that the land belongs to a Muslim shrine and the dispute has been raised unnecessarily by the RSS to create pressure on the government. He said that this issue should be seen from the legal angle.