Nearly six decades after the Durgadi Fort dispute first became a rallying point for Shiv Sena’s Hindutva politics, the historic Kalyan site once again turned into a flashpoint on Wednesday as rival Sena factions and BJP workers clashed with police over restrictions on temple entry during Bakrid prayers. The confrontation has revived a centuries-old conflict over ownership, worship rights and political symbolism at a fort complex that houses both a mosque and a temple and remains one of Maharashtra’s most sensitive religious disputes.

The immediate trigger for the latest confrontation was the temporary restriction on entry to the temple inside Kalyan’s Durgadi Fort during Bakrid prayers on Wednesday morning. Every year during Eid-ul-Adha, namaz is offered on the road leading to the fort and access to the temple is briefly halted as a security measure.

This year, however, workers from both the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) and the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena opposed the restrictions, demanding that Hindu devotees be allowed uninterrupted entry to the temple even during the prayer period.

According to police, the temple remained shut for around 30 minutes during the prayers, following which protests erupted near the fort complex. Sena (UBT) workers led by Vijay Salvi staged “Ghantanad” protests and performed maha aarti demonstrations, while BJP corporator Mahesh Patil objected to namaz being offered on roads and warned the administration against restricting temple access. As tensions escalated, police detained Patil, barricaded roads leading to the fort and deployed heavy security in the Lal Chowki area to prevent the situation from spiralling further.

The Durgadi Fort, located in Kalyan about 50 kilometers northeast of Mumbaihas significant historical references dating back to the 16th century when Kalyan was a prominent trading port under Muslim rule, thanks to its proximity to the Arabian Sea.

The fort, once a prominent feature of Kalyan, was described as “the shelter for the world” and covered approximately 70 acres of land. The fort stood at the northeastern corner of the city, elevated on high ground beside the river. Historical records suggest that the fort has existed since 1570, and early accounts reveal that it housed a “Musalman tomb, prayer place, and other buildings.”

A detailed description from the Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency: Thana (1892) paints a vivid picture of the fort’s features:
“On the top of the mound, on the west crest which overhangs and is about 100 feet above the river, is the Prayer Wall or Idga, sixty-four feetlong, thirteen high, and seven thick, and near the east crest of the mound a mosque, twenty-two feet long, twenty-two high, and twenty broad. About thirty yards from the mosque is a round cut stone well of great depth, eleven feet in diameter, with a wall two feet seven inches thick at the top,” it states.

In 1760, Kalyan was taken over by the Marathas, who made significant modifications to the fort. The Marathas built a small wooden temple dedicated to the goddess Durgadevi inside the fort and renamed it Durgadi Killa, which still bears that name today.

“In the citadel the Marathas built a small wooden temple of Durgadevi behind the mosque, and called the fort Durgadi Killa in honour of the goddess, a name which it still bears. They also changed the Jama mosque into Ramji’s temple,” the Gazette states.

Subsequently the British took over Kalyan in 1818 and the Gazette states that the temple ceased to the a place of worship after the image of the goddess was stolen.

“At present there are, on the mound at the north-west corner of the fort, the prayer-place and the mosque-temple, which has ceased to be a place of worship, since 1876 when the image of the goddess was stolen,” the Gazette states.

The present-day dispute over Durgadi Fort traces its roots to the mid-1960s, when local Kokni Muslims claimed they had been offering Eid prayers at the site for generations and that families such as the Mirsinghes were in possession of the land around the Idgah and mosque.

The issue began snowballing after local Hindu groups questioned Muslim control over the site and demanded equal rights to worship there.

In 1966, the Maharashtra government stepped in, asserting that the land belonged to the state and proposing to hand over a portion of it to the then Kalyan Municipal Council for development of a public park. The move triggered protests from the Muslim community, particularly the Majlis-e-Mushawarat Masajid-O-Awqaf Kalyan, which had been maintaining the Idgah and mosque structures.

Following the backlash, the government withdrew its decision and allowed Muslims to continue offering Eid prayers at the site. But while rolling back the order, the state also made it clear that neither the Hindu nor Muslim side would be recognised as the owner of the fort land. Muslims were permitted to offer Eid prayers twice a year at the Idgah wall and use the adjoining open ground for prayers.

The dispute took a sharper communal turn in 1968.

In court filings, the Muslim side alleged that Hindu groups placed a vermillion-smeared red stone inside the mosque premises. Around the same time, local Hindus began celebrating Navratri inside the fort, claiming that the structure identified as a mosque was actually a temple dedicated to Goddess Durga.

The confrontation intensified further after Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray visited the fort on September 20, 1968, unfurled a saffron flag and declared that an idol of Goddess Durga would be installed there. The episode is widely seen as one of the earliest moments when the Shiv Sena openly fused Hindutva mobilisation with local political assertion.

The legal fight formally escalated in the 1970s after the Maharashtra government once again asserted ownership over the land. In February 1974, the state handed over the land to the Kalyan Municipal Corporation a decision challenged by the Muslim side in court in 1976, setting off a legal battle that has continued for nearly five decades.

Over the years a fragile peace held where Muslims were permitted to offer Eid prayers twice annually after obtaining permission from the District Collector, while Hindus were allowed to conduct Navratri rituals at the site.

After nearly five decades of litigation, a Kalyan civil court in December 2024 ruled in favour of the Maharashtra government, holding that the disputed land belonged to the state. The court dismissed claims made by the Majlis-e-Mushawarat Trust, observing that the Muslim side’s legal challenge was barred under the Limitation Act because the suit had been filed in 1976 nearly nine years after possession was allegedly interrupted in 1968.

The ruling, however, did not settle the dispute. The Muslim side has challenged the verdict, arguing that the case was dismissed on technical grounds rather than on the merits of the historical and religious claims involved.

In January 2025, the district court ordered that status quo be maintained at the fort while the appeal is pending. The order effectively bars any construction activity at the disputed site until the matter is finally decided. “It is apparent that the dispute is sensitive… and therefore, [the] status quo order ought to have been continued,” the court observed. The case is still being heard.