Varanasi court rejects plea seeking excavation at Gyanvapi mosque complex

A fast-track court in Varanasi on Friday rejected a plea by the Hindu petitioner in the Gyanvapi mosque case seeking an additional survey of the mosque complex by the Archaeological Survey of India, reported The Times of India.

The plaintiff, advocate Vijay Shankar Rastogi, had sought directions to the archaeological body to use invasive excavation methods to access the purported remains of an ancient Hindu temple under the mosque’s central dome.

On January 31, the Varanasi district court allowed Hindus to offer prayers in the basement of the complex after an Archaeological Survey of India report claimed that a Hindu temple that existed at the site was destroyed in the 17th century and built over.

The Hindu litigants have claimed that an oval-shaped object found on the mosque premises in May 2022 is a shivling, a representation of the Hindu deity Shiva. However, the caretaker committee of the mosque has maintained that the object was a defunct fountainhead in the wazu khana, or ablution tank.

As part of Rastogi’s plea, the fast-track court on Friday also considered a request for the archaeological body to investigate the so-called shivling to determine its “age, size, monumental and archaeological design or style…and what materials have been used for building the same”.

The court, however, cited previous orders...

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