LUCKNOW: The Varanasi District Court has ordered the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) to preserve and document evidence found during the survey of the Gyanvapi mosque, and submit a list to it and the district magistrate.
District judge Dr Ajaya Krishna Vishvesha passed the order on requests filed by four of the original five Hindu women plaintiffs seeking the court’s direction to ensure that evidence found during the ongoing ASI survey was preserved.
However, the Anjuman Intezamia Masajid (AIM), the mosque management committee, that manages the Gyanvapi mosque, had submitted its objections to the request of the Hindu side on September 11.
The AIM had asserted that the request was filed on the basis of “baseless facts” and that no idols or artefacts were found during the survey.
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Meanwhile, passing the order, the district judge said: “It seems appropriate that during the survey by the Archaeological Survey of India, whatever objects and materials are obtained from the site in question, which are related to the facts of this case or related to Hindu religion and worship system or from historical or archaeological point of view may be important in the disposal of the case, ASI will hand over their possession to District Magistrate or his designated authority who will keep those things safe and will present them in the court whenever the court summons them.”
The court also ordered the ASI to make a list of items found during its survey and file a copy of the list in the court.
Notably, the ASI has been conducting a survey since August 4 this year on the Gyanvapi mosque premises, barring the ablution pond area which was barricaded in compliance of a court order after a purported Shivling-like structure was found in it during the court-commissioned survey in May last year.
The AIM had rejected the report of the court-commissioned survey survey claiming that it was not a Shivling but a fountain present in the ablution pond for ages.
However, the current ongoing ASI survey was ordered to determine whether the 17th-century mosque was constructed over a pre-existing structure of a Hindu temple following a suit filed by five Hindu women who demanded an unhindered right to worship Maa Shringar Gauri Sthal, a shrine for goddess Parvati and other deities, purportedly located behind the western wall of the mosque complex.