A Varanasi district court on January 31 gave Hindus permission to pray in the Gyanvapi mosque complex’s “Vyas Ka Tekhana” region, marking a significant victory for the Hindu side.
The ‘Vyas ka tekhana’ part of the Gyanvapi mosque complex in Varanasi, which was previously walled off, is now open for prayer for Hindu petitioners, a local court decided on Wednesday. The judge further stated that all preparations, including taking down the barricades, must be finished within a week. The court also declared that priests from the Kashi Vishwanath Temple should lead prayers.
Additionally, District Magistrate Ajay Krishna Vishwesha was asked to take control of the basement and make sure the puja begins within the next seven days.
The petition claims that up to the cellar’s closure in 1993, the priest, Somnath Vyas, offered prayers.
Before, rumors circulated that debris from Hindu god statues had been discovered while doing an area inspection. Additionally, it was asserted that elements of an earlier building—including pillars—that the ASI report had classified as a temple had been utilized in the construction of the mosque.
“The Hindu side is permitted to offer prayers; the district administration must make plans within seven days.” Everybody will be able to pray there, according to Vishnu Shankar Jain, the attorney for the four Hindu women petitioners in this case.
It is anticipated that the mosque committee will appeal this ruling to a higher court.
The ruling issued today follows the request made by the four Hindu ladies to the Supreme Court a day earlier for the excavation and scientific examination of a “shivling” that was purportedly discovered within the mosque complex’s enclosed “wazukhana” region.
Advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain, speaking for the Hindu side, stated that the court had permitted a priest’s family to worship gods in the Gyanvapi mosque hidden.
The puja will begin in seven days. Everyone will be able to perform puja, and Hindus are permitted to pray at “Vyas Ka Tekhana.” Within seven days, the District Administration must make provisions, according to Mr. Jain.
A committee representing the mosque has said that it will file a case with the Allahabad High Court to overturn the ruling.
The Vyas family, who used to reside here, still owns one of the mosque’s four “tahkhanas,” or cellars, located in the basement. Vyas had requested permission to enter the tahkhana and continue puja in his capacity as an ancestral pujari.
The Archaeological Survey of India, or ASI, was ordered by the Supreme Court to seal this area in 2022, but the Hindu side has since urged the court to allow the ASI to do another survey of the “wazukhana” area without endangering the “shivling.”
The Allahabad High Court dismissed all of the mosque committee’s petitions last month, in a decision that was significant since it addressed civil actions that sought the reconstruction of the temple at the location.
The maintainability of a 1991 case before a Varanasi court was contested in two petitions that the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board filed, among others, that the High Court heard and rejected.
Control over the contested property was sought in the 1991 lawsuit, which was brought on behalf of the Adi Vishveswar Virajman god. The Anjuman Intezamia Masajid Committee and the Waqf board contested this, claiming the suit could not be upheld under a law that prohibits changing a holy place’s identity from what it was on August 15, 1947, Independence Day.