The Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha on Monday petitioned a Mathura civil court for permission to “purify” with Ganga water the Shahi Idgah Masjid, claiming it was built after demolishing a Krishna temple and adding more ballast to a resurgent Hindutva campaign targeting the Idgah and the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi.
The court will on July 1 hear the petition along with another, moved last month by the little-known United Hindu Front, which seeks a survey of the Idgah premises for evidence of the remains of a Hindu temple — similar to a disputed exercise already carried out at the Gyanvapi.
On May 19, the Mathura district court had admitted a title suit moved by an RSS-linked advocate that seeks acquisition of the land on which the Idgah stands, claiming it is Krishna’s birthplace.
The management committees of the Krishna Janmasthan Temple and the Idgah – which stand side by side — have repeatedly distanced themselves from such disputes citing an agreement for amicable coexistence they had signed in 1968.
But Hindutva groups have serially petitioned courts seeking possession of the plots on which the Idgah and the Gyanvapi stand, while building a political campaign around the demands. Sangh parivar outfits claim the Gyanvapi was built after demolishing the original Kashi Vishwanath Temple.
“The Idgah was built during Mughal rule by razing a temple at Krishna’s birthplace. We should be allowed to clean the Islamic structure with holy water from the Ganga and the Yamuna,” Mahasabha treasurer Dinesh Sharma said.
Mathura residents Jay Bhagwan Goyal and Saurabh Gaur — president and member, respectively, of the United Hindu Front — too submitted an affidavit in the civil court on Monday seeking early hearing of their month-old petition for a survey of the Idgah. Following this, the court clubbed it with the Mahasabha plea and listed the hearing for July 1.
“We want the court to immediately take possession of the area because the Muslim community may try to tamper with the evidence of a temple’s remains that is present on the mosque’s walls,” Goyal said.
“We also appeal to the Idgah management to hand the premises over to us and take a plot of an equal size somewhere else. We’ll help them build the mosque there, but we won’t allow this mosque to stay at its present location.”
Gyanvapi case
The Varanasi district court is expected to pass its order on Tuesday on the maintainability of a petition seeking round-the-year worship rights for Hindus at the Shringar-Gauri, a structure on the Gyanvapi compound, and the validity of a survey conducted on the premises. The court reserved its order on Monday.
The survey was carried out on the orders of a civil judge to look for evidence of a temple’s remains. But the Supreme Court last week transferred the case to the district court while hearing a plea from the mosque management against the Hindu side’s petition and the survey.
While the survey report has not been made public, the Hindu side claims it mentions Hindu symbols and figurines carved on the mosque’s boundary walls and the discovery of a “Shivalinga” in a tank on the mosque premises.