Indian courtroom permits survey of a Seventeenth-century mosque to see if it was constructed over a Hindu temple

LUCKNOW, India (AP) — An Indian courtroom on Thursday dominated that officers can conduct a scientific survey to find out if a Seventeenth-century mosque within the nation’s north was constructed over a Hindu temple.

The Gyanvapi mosque within the holy Hindu metropolis of Varanasi, an space Prime Minister Narendra Modi represents in India’s parliament, is one in all a number of mosques in northern Uttar Pradesh state that some Hindus consider was constructed on prime of demolished Hindu temples.

The dispute over land possession had been one in all India’s most heated points between India’s 80% majority Hindu neighborhood and Muslim minority, which makes up practically 14% of the nation’s 1.4 billion folks.

Vishnu Shankar Jain, an lawyer representing the Hindu petitioners, mentioned the Excessive Court docket within the state on Thursday allowed the state-run Archaeological Survey of India to survey the construction with out inflicting any injury to it.

“Scientific survey is critical within the curiosity of justice,” Reside Regulation, a web based portal for Indian authorized information, cited Chief Justice Pritinker Diwaker as saying.

The Muslim petitioners objected to the survey saying it might injury the construction.

Khalid Rasheed, a Muslim petitioner, mentioned the mosque committee has the choice to attraction Thursday’s determination in India’s Supreme Court docket.

“We’re hopeful that justice will likely be achieved because the mosque is 600 years outdated and Muslims have been praying there for lengthy,” Rasheed advised reporters.

The Archeological Survey of India started the survey final month, however the venture was halted by the Supreme Court docket to present time for an attraction. The Excessive Court docket determination was introduced on Thursday.

Earlier, 5 Hindu ladies sought permission from a courtroom to carry out Hindu rituals in a single a part of the mosque, saying a Hindu temple as soon as stood on the positioning.

An issue arose over a construction clamied by the Hindu petitioners as a “shivling,” an emblem of Hindu Lord Shiva. Muslims mentioned it was a part of a fountain within the “Wazukhana,” a small water reservoir utilized by Muslim devotees to carry out ritual ablutions earlier than providing prayers.

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The Muslim physique, the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee, which manages the Gyanvapi mosque, contends that the survey is opposite to provisions of a 1991 Indian legislation defending locations of worship.

The legislation states that the character of all locations of worship, besides Ram Janmabhoomi–Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, shall be maintained as they have been on August 15, 1947, and that it is unlawful to transform such websites.

A Sixteenth-century Babri Masjid mosque in northern Indian metropolis of Ayodhya was destroyed by Hindu hard-liners in December 1992, sparking large Hindu-Muslim violence that left some 2,000 folks lifeless.

In 2019, India’s Supreme Court docket dominated in favor of a Hindu temple on the disputed spiritual floor and ordered that various land be given to Muslims to construct a mosque.

Hindu nationalists have been demanding a temple on the positioning within the city of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh state for greater than a century. Hindus are constructing a temple there now.

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