While Masjid Gareeb Nawaz Al Maroof once stood stall for a century and housed the thousands of Muslims who frequented the mosque to offer prayer, the beautiful structure was deemed illegal and demolished in the district of Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh in 2021.

On May 17, the police force in the district quickly surrounded the mosque, cleared the area and bulldozed the buildings that had been a place for Islamic worship since the British colonized India. Although there has been a surge of misinformation stating that the mosque had been built illicitly on government land, it is clear that this demolition had an affiliation to the Bharatiya Janata Party, who governs India on a national level.

The destruction of Masjid Gareeb Nawaz Al Maroof is also in violation of a court order, which proclaims that buildings within the state will be protected from eviction or demolition until the end of May because of the effects of the coronavirus. The Muslim population in the community are furious; the mosque community stated that they had been questioned by the local administration about the existence of an unofficial mosque in the region.

After providing a detailed account of documents and official records to the court that proved the legality of the structure, they were surprised to see government officials blocking access to the mosque and eventually destroying it to debris. This is yet another example of violations committed by the BJP, that is said to be on the of the most heinous actions committed to an Islamic place of worship since the destruction of the Babri Mosque in 1992.