“Our case is also pending in the High Court,” said Shailendra Vyas, who inherited the legal battle over the temple-mosque dispute of Varanasi from his late maternal grandfather Somnath Vyas. “We hope the High Court would soon take it up and deliver the verdict as early as possible, as it did on the issue of Ayodhya.”
S M Yaseen, a senior official of the Anjuman Intejamia Mosajid, said that his organisation would always be ready to accept the court’s verdict. “What we want is to ensure peace and traditional communal harmony in this city,” Yaseen told Deccan Herald.
The Anjuman Intejamia Mosajid is the apex body of the city’s Muslims and the defendant in the lawsuit filed by Somnath Vyas. Like Ayodhya, the dispute over Kashi Vishwanath Mandir and Gyanvapi Masjid also has its genesis in the pages of history, as Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb had allegedly ordered demolition of a temple of Lord Vishwanath to build the mosque in 1669.
But ever since Maharani Ahilya Bai Holkar of Indore built (or rebuilt according to Vyas) the temple just adjacent to the mosque in 1780, the two shrines co-existed for centuries without any trouble. Apart from the Kashi Vishwanath Temple, the Hindus offer obeisance to an old wall adjoining the mosque as it is believed to be the remnant of the allegedly demolished shrine.
However, when the saffron brigade’s Ram Janmabhumi movement gained momentum in the early 1990s, the VHP and other organisations also sought to bring the temple-mosque issue of Varanasi to the forefront. It was around the same time that Somnath Vyas, on behalf of the Swayambhu Lord Vishwanath, filed a civil suit in the court of the civil judge in Varanasi.
There has however been little progress in the legal battle over the past decade or so, as a petition filed by the Anjuman Intejamia Mosajid in the Allahabad High Court challenging the ruling of the district judge over the legitimacy of the suit of Somnath Vyas is still pending.
After the demolition of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992, the mosque and the temple were barricaded and tight security rings were laid around both.
Uttar Pradesh also has another trouble-spot – Mathura, which Hindus believe to be the birth-place of Lord Krishna and where Keshav Dev temple co-exists with Shahi Idgah mosque. There were legal battles on these two shrines too and, ever since the demolition of Babri Mosque, they too came under security rings. The VHP and other saffron organisations’ wish-list include a massive temple at Krishna Janmabhumi too.
Ironically, if the Allahabad HC’s verdict is ever implemented and a Ram Mandir and a Babri Masjid are to co-exist, they will look somewhat akin to the temple-mosque twins of Kashi and Mathura.
Muslim clerics to hold meeting
The Muslim clerics are likely to hold a meeting next week to discuss the outcome of the Ayodhya verdict, DHNS reports from New Delhi. Imam Umer Ilyasi, President, All India Imams’ Association, said he would not comment on the verdict as a meeting would be called. “It is not proper to comment anything in haste,” he added.