KADALPUR (GREATER NOIDA): A mosque has come exactly at the spot where young IAS officer Durga Sakthi Nagpal had gone with her men a year ago – on July 27, 2013 – to demolish a wall that had come up illegally on government land. That act had led to her suspension, ostensibly because she was inflaming communal passions in the month of Ramzan.

A year on, work is almost complete on the new mosque that sits illegally on that land. All it needs are the finishing touches of plaster and paint.

The district administration here claims it has no knowledge of this structure. Said Gautam Budh Nagar district magistrate AV Rajamauli, “I have no idea whether the mosque in Kadalpur village was developed with permission or not.”

Kadalpur falls under the Sadar division of Gautam Budh Nagar district. Bacchu Singh, sub-divisional magistrate (Sadar), said, “I believe the mosque was already developed in Kadalpur before my posting around 10 months back. But I will visit Kadalpur soon and check the facts.”

Durga, too, was the SDM of Sadar before she was suspended. Between February and July, she had launched a virtual war against the sand mafia. She along with the Noida police registered 66 FIRs, arrested 104 people and seized 81 vehicles in that period.

This zeal, obviously, did not go down well with some.

A tape surfaced where senior SP leader Narendra Bhati was heard bragging that he had managed to get Durga suspended in just 41 minutes.

Though there was intense media glare on the issue, the Akhilesh Yadav government chargesheeted Durga on August 4. Her suspension was finally revoked on September 22, a day after she and her husband met Akhilesh Yadav. A few days later, she was posted as joint magistrate, Kanpur Rural, and then in March this year, was made chief development officer of Mathura. On July 12, she was cleared for central deputation, and is now awaiting her posting.

And Greater Noida is back to where it was before Durga stepped on the accelerator. The mining mafia is active again. And the mosque has come up with no one in the administration having any idea whether it is legal or not.

Hafiz Aas Mohammad, the cleric of the mosque, said, “We are all responsible citizens and live in harmony. There could have been communal tension after the demolition of the wall but all residents behaved responsibly. The residents only want development.”

Ironically, the mosque may not have come up had Durga not demolished the wall. Locals said they had been trying to build the mosque since 2008, but didn’t have sufficient funds. But after the demolition, money poured in from various quarters, and the structure came up rapidly.

