Court appointed officials survey area outside Gyanvapi Mosque next to Kashi Vishwanath temple

The court commissioner conducted videography and survey of some areas outside Gyanvapi Masjid after some Delhi women had moved a Varanasi court for permission to worship at Shringar Gauri temple adjacent to the mosque in the Kashi Vishwanath Temple-Gyanvapi complex.

Varanasi (UP): A court appointed official and a bunch of lawyers conducted a survey near a mosque in Varanasi on Friday in connection to a plea seeking access to a Hindu shrine located next to it.

The court commissioner conducted videography and survey of some areas outside Gyanvapi Masjid after some Delhi women had moved a Varanasi court for permission to worship at Shringar Gauri temple adjacent to the mosque in the Kashi Vishwanath Temple-Gyanvapi complex.

The survey was expected to continue on Saturday as well. The counsel of the mosque arrangement committee, Abhay Nath Yadav, however, questioned the impartiality of the court-appointed commissioner Ajay Kumar Mishra and said they would move the court for his removal. After the completion of the videography survey, women plaintiff counsel Vishnu Shankar Jain said, "The court commissioner, in coordination with the district magistrate, has written that he would go inside the barricading' tomorrow for the survey. The time to go inside the barricaded portion of the complex for the survey has been fixed at three o'clock on Saturday, he said, adding the entire campus would be videographed and the commissioner would go inside the barricading in our presence.

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Alleging that the walls of buildings to be taken up under the purview of the survey were scrapped, Yadav said the court had not given any order for digging or scraping and he was not satisfied with the work done on Friday. He, however, clarified that the videography-survey team did not go inside the Gyanvapi Masjid on Friday. "The proceedings started at 4 pm and the platform which is on the west side of the mosque was video graphed. After that, the commissioner tried to go inside by getting the entrance of Gyanvapi Masjid opened to which I protested and said the court has not given any order that videography should be done inside the mosque but the court commissioner claimed he has got an order to get the videography done by getting the lock opened," he said. The truth is that there is no such order. Therefore, I directly question the impartiality of the court commissioner, Yadav said.

"I have prepared an application stating that the behaviour of the commissioner is not fair. He is coming to act as a party and I have no faith in him. I will give an application to this effect to the court tomorrow and request to change the advocate commissioner" he said. Earlier, on the orders of a court, Commissioner Ajay Kumar Mishra and others reached for the videography and survey work of Shringar Gauri and other deities located at the Kashi Vishwanath Dham-Gyanvapi complex. Before the arrival of the team, a large crowd of devotees had gathered for Friday prayers. Some youths also raised 'Har Har Mahadev' slogan evoking a reaction from some Muslim youths who too raised some religious slogans but the police promptly drove them away. In the meantime, shutters of shops in the vicinity of Kashi Vishwanath Dham and Gyanvapi complex.

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In the Shringar Gauri worship case, the court of Varanasi Civil Judge (Senior Division) Ravi Kumar Diwakar had on April 26 ordered videography of the Shringar Gauri temple in the Kashi Vishwanath-Gyanvapi mosque complex and other places after Eid and before May 10. To carry out its order, the court had appointed advocate Ajay Kumar as its commissioner. But the Gyanvapi mosque's management committee had announced to oppose the court order for the videography and survey inside the mosque's premises, scheduled to be held on May 6 and 7. "No one will be allowed to enter the mosque," S M Yasin, joint secretary of Anjuman Intezamiya Masajid, had said last week.

SM Yasin said the team has arrived for the survey work. "Our opposition has been to the videography in the mosque area as it is prohibited and it is also not mentioned in the court order", Yasin added.

Read:5 women seek rights to worship in old temple complex