Petition in Allahabad HC seeks opening 'closed rooms' in Taj Mahal to ascertain existence of temple

Amid the ongoing survey at the Kashi Vishwanath Temple-Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi to find out if there is any proof that the mosque had been constructed after demolishing a part of the temple, a petition was filed in the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court, seeking a direction to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to open the closed rooms inside the Taj Mahal to ascertain if there were Hindu idols and scriptures there.

The petition has been filed by one Rajanish Kumar Singh, who claims to be the media in-charge of BJP's Ayodhya district unit. Saffron outfits consider Taj Mahal to be a Shiva temple, which was 'demolished' by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan and converted into a mosque. They call it 'Tejo Mahal'.

In his petition, which was yet to come up for hearing, Singh had contended that there were more than twenty closed rooms in the basement and upper floors of the Taj Mahal, which were not open to the public. He claimed that there were Hindu idols and scriptures in those rooms which proved that Taj Mahal was in fact a Shiva Temple.

Singh also sought the court's directive to the government to form a committee to examine the claims by the saffron activists that Mughal emperor Shah Jahan had converted the Shiva Temple into a memorial to his wife Mumtaz Mahal after her death.

"The controversy could be resolved once and for all if the closed rooms were opened and a specially constituted committed committee examined the claims," Singh said.

He also said that he had sought replies from the union cultural ministry through an RTI application about the closed rooms but was told that they had been closed for security reasons.

Saffron activists had, in the past, recited Shiv Chalisa (hymns praising Lord Shiva) inside the Taj Mahal complex in Agra on the occasion of Mahashivratri. Some members of Hindu Jagaran Manch, a saffron outfit, including its district president Gauravn Thakur, had been arrested by the police after they waved saffron flags inside the monument a few months back.