Hearing to continue in Uttar Pradesh's Gyanvapi mosque survey issue

Vibha Sharma

New Delhi, May 10

A plea by five women asking to be allowed to pray at Shringar Gauri, a Hindu shrine behind the Gyanvapi mosque adjacent to the famous Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi, is building up into a major flashpoint in Uttar Pradesh.

Political parties have begun wading into the controversy with opposition parties, including Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, accusing the ruling BJP of ‘sponsoring’ people to create a rift.

Yadav on Monday alleged that at a time when inflation and unemployment were rampant, the BJP was “busy breaking the ‘Ganga-Jamuni fabric’ of the state by raising issues like the Gyanvapi case”.

Earlier, AIMIM chief Asaddudin Owaisi had said that the court-ordered survey violated the Places of Worship Act. The Congress also accused the BJP of creating an ‘Ayodhya-like dispute’ for political mileage – charges that the saffron party dismissed.

A Varanasi court will continue hearing the Gyanvapi mosque survey issue on Tuesday.

A court-appointed commissioner on Friday-Saturday conducted videography and survey of some areas outside the mosque in the Gyanvapi-Shringar Gauri complex which could not be fully completed.

The survey had to be stalled amid protests. The caretaker committee of the Gyanvapi mosque and its lawyers have said they are opposed to any videography inside the mosque. According to reports, the court, which heard arguments from both sides, said it would continue with the hearing later in the day.

Amid the growing tensions, Lucknow-based political observer K Vikram Rao urged “the educated class among the Muslim community to rise to the occasion and realise the national gravity of the serious communal situation that may arise because of this violent protest”.

“The Babri Masjid should not be repeated anywhere; the issue should be sorted out amicably. Muslims say there was no temple (at Gyanvapi) but they themselves called it Gyanvapi for three centuries. If it is Gyanvapi, it means ‘pathshala’. In India, every temple used to have a library and a ‘pathshala’,” he said.

The survey exercise is being done on the court’s order on a plea by Delhi-based women seeking permission to perform daily worship of idols located on the outer wall of the mosque and other “visible and invisible deities within the old temple complex”.

At present, devotees are allowed to worship Shringar Gauri only on the fourth day of Chaitra Navratri.