Barabanki , As Muslims across North India celebrated Eid-ul-Fitr on Saturday, Shia community members at Kintur village in Badosarai area here did not.
They abstained from Eid celebrations this year to mourn the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in airstrikes by the US and Israel on March 1.
A pall of gloom has descended on the community as the slain Iranian cleric shared an ancestral link with the place.
Sarwar Ali, caretaker of the 19th-century monument Waqf Nawab Amjad Ali Khan Imambara, said that people in the area gathered on Eid-ul-Fitr to condemn the joint military action by the US and Israel against Iran, terming it “unjust” and raising slogans against Israel.
“Shia families observed no festivities this year. They did not prepare ‘sewaiyaan’ at home or embrace each other; they only offered the congregational prayers. A protest demonstration was carried out peacefully,” he said.
Dr Rehan Kazmi, a resident of Kintur village, said there is an atmosphere of gloom following the killing of Khamenei.
According to locals, Kintur shares an ancestral link with Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, mentor of the slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
A forefather of Khomeini who is known for leading Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979 and is the founding father of the Islamic Republic is believed to have migrated from Kintur village to Iran around 150 years ago.
Though much has changed over time, villagers said the lineage and its historical association continue to hold emotional significance.
Syed Nihal Ahmad Kazmi, who claimed he was a descendant of Khomeini’s family, had earlier told PTI that Kintur was the birthplace of Khomeini’s grandfather, Syed Ahmad Musavi.
Kazmi said Musavi had participated in India’s freedom movement and embarked on a pilgrimage to Iran in 1834. Since he was a freedom fighter, the then British administration allegedly did not permit him to return to India.
So Musavi settled in the city of Khomein in Iran, where his grandson Khomeini was born, Kazmi said.
He said the slain Khamenei had been a disciple of Khomeini and carried forward his legacy after the latter’s death in 1989.
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