Varanasi: A court in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh will hear a plea seeking permission for Hindu worship and offerings inside the Gyanvapi mosque, sources said. It is learnt that the plea has been filed by Swami Avimukteshwarananda Saraswati seeking worship and offering inside the premises of the mosque. The hearing comes a day after the Varanasi district court completed the hearing on two pleas related to the Shringar Gauri-Gyanvapi case and set Sept 26 as the date to pronounce the orders on the two hearings.
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In the first plea which was filed by Anjuman Intezamia Masajid Committee (AIMC), the Muslim body which manages the affairs of the mosque, the petitioners sought an order to stop the ongoing survey by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in the Gyanvapi mosque complex. In the second petition filed by four Hindu women plaintiffs, the petitioners sought an order to the district magistrate to store the “evidences found in the ongoing Gyanvapi survey” in the store house of the mosque.
Advocates Sudhir Tripathi, Subhash Nandan Chaturvedi and Deepak Singh representing the Hindu woman petitioners Lakshmi Devi, Manju Vyas, Sita Sahu and Rekha Pathak requested the court to issue and order from the DM to protect and preserve the Hindu religious symbols. State government's special advocate Rajesh Mishra also presented his argument in support of this.
The Hindu side has also accused the opposition Anjuman Anjamiya Mosque Committee of obstruction on several occasions during the survey. On the other hand counsels Mumtaz Ahmad and Raees Ansari appearing for AIMC sought an order to stop the ongoing survey by ASI in the Gyanvapi mosque premises.
