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Mumbai: If Kings Circle railway station can be renamed after Jain saint Tirthankar Parshwanath, why can Sandhurst Road not be named after Baba Abdul Rehman Shah whose shrine in Dongri is located nearby, Muslim residents of the area have asked.
The Maharashtra cabinet on Wednesday, in a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, cleared a proposal to change the names of seven suburban railway stations in the city. Sandhurst Road railway station on the Central Railway will be renamed Dongri after the locality located to the west of the station.
Dongri has the tomb of Pir Sayyad Abdul Rehman Shah, a Muslim mystic who lived just over a century ago. The holy man, called the ‘Sultan of Dongri', is revered as an Aulik or ‘friend of god’, the term for an intermediary who can communicate with God on behalf of the followers.
Residents have blamed local politicians for not supporting the demand. On Friday, the trustee of Jama Masjid, Mumbai's most important mosque, Shuiab Khateeb, raised the new name issue. Khateeb asked why representatives from central Mumbai, where the shrine is located, did not ask the government to consider naming the railway station after the saint.
"The new names of some of the railway stations reflect the local culture. Other stations have been named after religious leaders, like Tirthankar Parshwanath. When Sandhurst Road was proposed to be named Dongri, why did the local MLA (Member of Legislative Assembly) not raise the issue in the assembly," said Khateeb.
Amin Patel, MLA from the area, said that he should not be accused of not taking up the issue of renaming Sandhurst Road station after the saint. "There was a demand from the local people that the station should be renamed after Baba Abdul Rehman Shah. I wrote to the government one and half years ago, but this government has a typical style of functioning," said Patel. "I have taken up the issue in the past and I will take it up again."
The Dongri shrine which recently observed the 109th Urus or death anniversary of the saint, has a big following in the area where many shops and homes display his photographs. The mystic’s origins are not well documented, but shops and homes in the street where the shrine is located display his photos. Devotees said that it is believed that he came from Salem in Tamil Nadu and taught the Koran to the kids in the area.
The chilla or the meditation place of the saint is believed to be located in the compound of Dongri police station which borders Sandhurst Road railway station. The story is that the colonial-era police once arrested the saint during an independence protest. He was locked up in the police station but was found sitting on a stone slab under a tree in the police station compound. Since then, the policemen at Dongri have been his followers and they take part in the annual festival at the shrine.
