Hindu worshipers begin praying inside a 17th-century mosque in the Indian city of Varanasi. This was several hours after a court order granted permission to enter the disputed area.
Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi is one of the Muslim places of worship that right-wing Hindu groups backed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been seeking to reclaim for decades.
Varanasi is Prime Minister Modi's constituency in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, which is also ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
On Wednesday, a local court ruled that Hindu worshipers can worship in the basement of the building and ordered authorities to “make appropriate arrangements” for the worshipers within a week.
According to Indian media reports, the Hindu priest's family began praying in the basement of the mosque early Thursday morning.
#clock | A priest offers prayers at the 'Vyas Ji Ka Tehana' inside the Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi, following a district court order.
Vishnu Shankar Jain, lawyer for the Hindu side in the Gyambapi case, confirms the visual pic.twitter.com/mUB6TMGpET
— Ani (@ANI) February 1, 2024
Akhlaq Ahmad, a lawyer representing the Muslim petitioners, said the court order would be appealed.
Gyanvapi Mosque was built in the city during the Mughal era, where Hindus from all over the country cremated their relatives on the banks of the Ganges River. Hindu worshipers claim the mosque replaced a temple dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva.
The Archaeological Survey of India announced last month that research at the site appears to support the idea that there was originally a temple there.
Empowered right-wing Hindu groups claim that some of the Muslim places of worship were built on top of ancient temples during the Mughal era.
Centuries-old mosque destroyed in India's capital
Meanwhile, a centuries-old mosque in India's capital has been destroyed by bulldozers, a member of the building's management committee said.
New Delhi's Masjid Akhonji, which administrators say is about 600 years old, was home to 22 students enrolled in an Islamic boarding school.
It was demolished on Tuesday in Mehrauli Forest, an affluent area dotted with centuries-old ruins from a settlement that predates present-day Delhi.
In Delhi's Mehrauli, the Delhi Development Authority on Tuesday arbitrarily demolished a 600-year-old mosque.
Imam Zakir Hussein said that Madrasa Bahlul Uloom and Masjid Akhonji, which houses the graves of revered figures, were completely destroyed. pic.twitter.com/tjEWowUfQN
— Maktoob (@MaktoobMedia) January 31, 2024
Mohammad Zafar, a member of the mosque's management committee, told Agence France-Presse that no prior notice was received before the demolition took place “in the darkness of night.”
He said many graves within the mosque grounds had also been desecrated and no one was allowed to remove copies of the Koran or other materials from inside the mosque until it was demolished.
“Many people we respect and my own ancestors were buried there. Now there is no trace of their graves,” Zaffer told AFP. “The rubble from the mosque and tomb was removed and dumped elsewhere.”
Officials said the demolition was part of an effort to remove “illegal” structures from the forest reserve.
Since Prime Minister Modi took office in 2014, calls for India to embrace Hindu supremacy have rapidly grown, and the world's third-largest Muslim population, a minority of approximately 200 million Muslims, There are growing concerns about the future of
Last week, Prime Minister Modi presided over a grand inauguration ceremony for a Hindu temple built on the site of another Mughal-era mosque in the nearby city of Ayodhya.
In 1992, Hindu zealots demolished the Babri Mosque in a movement spearheaded by members of Modi's party, sparking sectarian violence that killed 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, across the country.
A decades-long legal battle over the future of the Babri site ended in 2019 when India's Supreme Court cleared the construction of a temple dedicated to the god Ram, who, according to Hindu scripture, was born in the city. .
Prime Minister Modi's consecration of the Ram temple fulfills a 35-year-old promise of the Bharatiya Janata Party and has been portrayed by the party and its affiliates as a Hindu awakening. It also comes months before national elections scheduled for May, which are expected to increase Mr. Modi's chances of winning a third term.
Critics have accused Mr. Modi of promoting pro-Hindu policies and promoting discrimination against Muslims, but he insists his government is doing no such thing.
Last week, a senior member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the far-right ideological leader of the BJP, questioned whether the Gyanvapi Mosque and three other mosques, including the demolished one in Ayodhya, were mosques at all. .
“The people of this country and the world should think about whether we should consider them mosques or not. Should they stand for the truth or should they stand for the wrong?” Indresh Kumar said in an interview with Reuters.
“Please accept the truth. Have a dialogue and let the judiciary decide.”