The Varanasi district court on Monday dismissed a petition by the Hindu side to change the cloth tied on the lock of the wazoo khana — a pool used by Muslims in
the past for ritualistic washing before namaz — at the Gyanvapi mosque.
The cloth was wrapped around the lock by the local authorities on the direction of the Supreme Court in 2019 to seal the premises. The Varanasi district administration had also supported the need for changing the cloth and told the court that it was tattered.
The court of district judge Sanjeev Shukla has rejected the apprehension of the Hindu side that the mosque management would tamper with the evidence inside the wazoo khana.
The Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee, the management body of the Islamic shrine, had rejected the allegation and claimed that the fresh demand for changing the cloth of the seal was a ploy of the Hindu petitioners to unnecessarily irritate and continuously disturb them to gain
access to the Islamic shrine, located beside the Kashi Vishwanath temple.
The court posted the case for further hearing on January 6.
A section of Hindus claim that the Gyanvapi mosque was built at the direction of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb after demolishing a portion of the Kashi Vishwanath temple. Several cases are pending in Allahabad High Court and
the Varanasi court with regard to the claim.
The Hindu petitioners have also claimed that there was a sacred pond called Gyanvapi at the site of the mosque till the Mughals’ time and Hindus used to take holy bath there before worshipping at the Vishwanath temple. But Aurangzeb handed over that area to the mosque, which was built on the ruins of a portion of the temple.
The mosque committee claims that the structure existed there even before the Mughals came to India. The temple had also been there since time immemorial and there was no problem for any community before the rise of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad in the early 21st century, the committee says. The VHP started identifying the places where a temple and a mosque coexisted and demanded that the government and the courts remove the Islamic structures, the committee alleges.
A survey was conducted on the Gyanvapi premises in 2023 on the direction of a local court and the surveyors claimed that they found remains of Hindu temples inside the mosque. The court also allowed Hindus to worship in the basement of the mosque last year. Since then, puja is performed in the basement while the mosque, which is on the first floor, is open for Muslims.
Since the court’s Hindu surveyors had claimed there was a Shivalinga in the wazoo khana, the apex court had ordered sealing it to maintain status quo till further orders.