The Allahabad High Court.
Credit: PTI File Photo
Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh has been witnessing a sudden surge in the number of cases landing in the courts involving ownership disputes over mosques following claims by the saffron outfits that they (mosques) were built after demolishing temples.
After Sambhal and Badaun mosques, the ownership dispute over the famous Atala Mosque in UP’s Jaunpur town has reached the High Court.
The Allahabad High Court on Monday directed the Hindu plaintiffs to file a rejoinder within three weeks on a petition filed by the Atala Mosque caretaker challenging the order of the Jaunpur district court by which it ruled that the application filed by a saffron outfit Swaraj Vahini seeking ownership of the Atala Mosque on the ground that it had been built after demolishing a temple was maintainable.
A district court in Jaunpur had on May 29 admitted the application of the Hindu plaintiffs and listed the matter for hearing. The Muslim side then filed a revision application which was rejected by the district court in August.
State president of Swaraj Vahini Santosh Kumar Mishra had claimed in his application moved in the district court that the Atala Mosque had been built after demolishing a Hindu temple by Firoz Shah Tughlaq, a Muslim ruler of the Tughlaq dynasty, who governed the Sultanate of Delhi from 1351 to 1388.
Mishra claimed that Hindu ruler Vijay Chandra had built the Atala Temple in Jaunpur In the 13th century. The application in the court sought permission to perform ‘puja’ in the Mosque.
AIMIM chief Asauddin Owaisi slammed the saffron outfits for what he said was pushing the country into historical fights and added that no country could become a ‘superpower’ if a section of the population faced such pressures continuously.
Earlier a similar petition was filed in Sambhal and Badaun district courts seeking ownership of the Mosques there claiming that they were built after demolishing Hindu temples.