The Varanasi district administration on Thursday allowed the Vyas family and Kashi Vishwanath temple priests to conduct puja at the basement of the Gyanvapi mosque following Wednesday’s judgment by the district court to allow Hindus to worship at the site.

Sources said that as the basement was accessed at 2am and prayers began at 4am, Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud heard the mosque management’s plea to quash the district court order urgently at his residence in the early hours.

He asked them to go to Allahabad High Court, which will hear the matter on Friday, the sources added.

District judge A.K. Vishvesha had asked the district magistrate and the management commitees of the temple and the mosque to sit together and decide within a week the modalities for Hindus to pray at the basement, called “Vyasji Ka Tahkhana”.

Shailendra Kumar Pathak, a member of the Vyas family, had petitioned the district court saying the basement belonged to the family and Hindus prayed there till the Mulayam Singh Yadav government barricaded the area off in December 1993.

Sources said district magistrate S. Rajalingam and senior superintendent of police Mutha Ashok Jain arrived at the spot, accompanied by Vyas family members and priests, around 2am.

“They called some labourers to clean Vyasji Ka Tahkhana,” an eyewitness who declined to be named said. “They asked policemen to remove the barricading,
and the puja started in the presence of the Vyas family and priests, headed by Ganeshwar Shastri Dravid.”

A member of the Vyas family said there were eight idols, including those of Ram and Shiva, in the basement along with paintings of gods and goddesses.

“Now that puja has started, it will continue round the clock. The attendees and priests may change but the puja will not stop. Currently, there are about 20 people at the puja,” Jitendra Vyas said in the afternoon.

The Varanasi district court is also hearing another petition that seeks shifting of the Gyanvapi mosque — which abuts the Kashi Vishwanath Temple — and handover of the entire site to Hindus on the ground that the mosque was built after demolishing parts of the original temple.

The Archaeological Survey of India has submitted to the court a report that is understood to have said that incomplete idols of Hindu gods are buried in the mosque compound.

On Thursday, one of Pathak’s lawyers, Vishnu Shankar Jain, said: “The puja (at the basement) was started by priests, and common devotees will attend it as soon as the administration makes some arrangements for them.”

Asked about the hurry in which the puja was started within hours of the
district court order, Jain said: “The puja was abruptly stopped one night in December 1993 and the priests of the Vyas family were forced to leave the place. The puja has now started there in the same way.”

Some local people said they did not remember any puja being done there before, and that the Vyas family used the basement to store puja materials.

Varanasi divisional commissioner Kaushal Raj Sharma said: “We have removed part of the barricading and erected a (temporary) gate so people can enter Vyasji Ka Tahkhana from the temple side. We are following the court order in a systematic manner.”