A Supreme Court lawyer has moved Allahabad High Court seeking the handover to Hindus of the Shahi Idgah in Mathura, which many Hindus believe to be the birthplace of Lord Krishna.

Mehek Maheshwari, the petitioner, has told the court that a temple should be built at the place where the idgah now stands. A similar petition is pending before the Mathura district court at a time a “Krishna Janmabhoomi movement”, similar to the Ram Janmabhoomi movement in Ayodhya, is crystallising.

Maheshwari has claimed that Lord Krishna was born in a prison that was located at the same spot in the Dwapar Yuga where the idgah now stands. The lawyer has pleaded that a temple be allowed to be built there and Hindus be permitted to worship there during Krishna Janmashtami and one or two days every week.

Maheshwari has also demanded an excavation at the site where the idgah is located so that it can be proved that it is the birthplace of Lord Krishna. The petitioner has challenged the Places of Worship Act, 1991, which advocates that status quo as in 1947 be maintained at places of worship.

The management committees of the idgah and an adjoining Krishna temple have said that they have been coexisting amicably and have nothing to do with the petitioners.

Earlier, the Mathura district court had rejected a similar plea on October 1. Ranjana Agnihotri, a lawyer in Lucknow who is considered close to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and six others had claimed that a Krishna temple existed at the birthplace of the Lord before it was destroyed several times by Muslim invaders and Mughal forces.

Claiming that they were friends of “Lord Krishna Virajman”, the petitioners had stated that the place where the Shahi Idgah stands, besides the adjoining Sri Krishna Temple, was the prison of Kansa where his nephew, Lord Krishna, was born.

Rejecting the petition, the Mathura court had said that being devotees of a god was not reason enough to claim ownership of His sacred place.

Later, Agnihotri had moved the court of the district judge against the order of the civil judge, senior division, and the hearing is scheduled to be held on November 18.