No Hindu idols in Taj Mahal basement, says ASI to RTI plea

In a response to an RTI (Right to Information) plea, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) on Sunday said that there were no locked chambers in the basement of Taj Mahal containing idols of Hindu deities.

Agra:In a response to an RTI (Right to Information) plea, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) on Sunday said that there were no locked chambers in the basement of the Taj Mahal containing idols of Hindu deities. This comes after controversy regarding the subject, which started with Bharatiya Janata Party's media-in-charge for Ayodhya, Dr. Rajneesh Kumar, filing a plea before the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court back on May 7, 2022.

Kumar had sought directives to be given to ASI in order to open rooms located in the tomb's basement, noting the chambers might contain "idols of Hindu deities and scriptures". The HC subsequently dismissed the petition on May 12. Later, on June 21, Trinamool Congress spokesperson Saket Gokhale launched the RTI plea, posing two queries.

The questions were, respectively, whether the land on which the Taj Mahal stands belongs to any temple, and whether there were idols of Hindu deities in the rooms located in the basement. In a response accessed by ETV Bharat, Central Public Information Officer Mahesh Chand Meena said "There is no "Locked Chambers" inside the Taj Mahal which contain the idols of Hindu deities". It further noted that the land, too, did not belong to any temple.