Four persons have jointly moved a petition in a Mathura court on behalf of Bhagwan Keshavdev (Lord Krishna) to claim the Sri Krishna Janmabhumi Trust’s right to the 13.37 acres of land where a temple and a mosque stand, a place identified by Hindutva entities as the birthplace of Lord Krishna.

Two advocates — Mahendra Pratap Singh and Rajendra Maheshwari — and two Hindutva organisations — the United Hindu Front and the Dharm Raksha Sangh — claimed in their petition before the court of the senior civil judge on Wednesday.

that the Sri Krishna Janmasthan Sewa Sangh, the management committee of the Krishna Janmasthan temple in Mathura, and the Intezamia Committee of the adjoining Shahi Idgah Masjid had illegally entered into an agreement on October 12, 1968, to coexist.

The petitioners have said the property actually belongs to the Sri Krishna Janmabhumi Trust. They did not say when this trust was formed.

“Obviously, the Sewa Sangh and the Intezamia Committee have no right to the land. We have documents to prove that the disputed land where the temple and the mosque stand side-by-side belongs to the Sri Krishna Janmabhumi Trust, which also owns the Thakur Keshavdev Virajman Mandir in the Bangar area of Mathura. The case will be heard on January 22,” Singh said.

There has been a concerted attempt to build an Ayodhya-style movement in Mathura, projecting the area where the temple and the mosque coexist as the birthplace of Lord Krishna.
On November 13, a Supreme Court lawyer had moved Allahabad High Court on behalf of Lord Krishna, seeking possession of the Shahi Idgah. A third case is pending in the district court of Mathura.

Mehek Maheshwari, the petitioner in the high court, had requested that the Shahi Idgah be handed over to Hindus, claiming that Lord Krishna was born in a prison located at the same spot in the Dwapar Yuga.

He has demanded the excavation of the place where the mosque is located so that it could be proved that the spot was the birthplace of Lord Krishna. The petitioner has also challenged the Places of Worship Act, 1991, which advocates status quo, as of 1947, at places of worship.

The management committees of both the temple and the mosque have said they have nothing to do with such disputes.

On October 1, Ranjana Agnihotri, a lawyer from Lucknow, and six others moved the Mathura district court claiming that a Krishna temple existed at the birthplace of the God before it was destroyed several times by Muslim invaders and Mughal forces.

Describing themselves as “friends of Lord Krishna Virajman”, Agnihotri and the others had stated in court that the place where the Shahi Idgah stands was the prison of Kansa, the demon who had wanted to kill his nephew Krishna soon after his birth.

A local court — that of the civil judge, senior division — had earlier rejected the petition while observing that being devotees of a god is not reason enough to claim ownership of a sacred place.