Gyanvapi: Allahabad HC dismisses Muslims' plea; allows pujas
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Allahabad: Dismissing the Gyanvapi Mosque committee's appeal, the Allahabad High Court allowed Hindus to offer prayers in the southern cellar of the Gyanvapi Mosque complex on Monday.
The Varanasi district court had earlier allowed the Hindus to perform pujas, and it was that the Muslim parties moved the high court.
Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal ruled that after going through the entire records and considering the arguments of the parties, the court couldn't find any ground to interfere in the Varanasi court judgement, which appointed the district magistrate as the receiver of the complex and allowed Hindus to do pujas.
It was on January 31 that the Varanasi district court made the ruling in favour of the Hindu side. The court directed the district magistrate to make arrangements for pujas and appoint a pujari (priest) nominated by Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust. After that, the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee, which manages the Gyanwapi complex, moved to the high court on February 1. The Supreme Court had refused to urgently hear the Masjid Committee's plea.
According to the 'Vyas Family', the Hindu side, which demanded permission for prayers in the cellar, their ancestors conducted religious ceremonies in the basement until 1993. The family discontinued their pujas after a state government directive.
A couple of weeks ago, Gyanwapi Mosque imam Abdul Batin Nomani said that all of the Sangh Parivar's claims regarding the mosque are false.
Speaking at the Jama'at-e-Islami fraternity conference in Kerala's Kozhikode, Nomani stated that there is no reference to a temple in Varanasi's history where the mosque now stands.
"What is now propagated as the area where the puja was performed is actually a place near the mosque where the properties of the temple were stored," he said, the New Indian Express reported.