'Ancient temples' continue to be 'unearthed' in Uttar Pradesh, latest in Lucknow

Lucknow: As the trend of finding ‘ancient’ Hindu temples in Muslim-dominated localities in different Uttar Pradesh towns continues with around half a dozen temples were being ‘unearthed’ in the past one week, saffron activists on Thursday claimed to have found another ‘ancient’ temple in Lucknow.

On Thursday, saffron activists claimed to have found an ‘ancient’ Radha-Krishna Temple in the basement of a complex, which was built by a Muslim, close to the state assembly building in Lucknow and alleged that the owners tried to ‘hide’ the temple.

Saffron leader and Brahmin Sansad president Amarnath Mishra met the Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) officials here and demanded cancellation of the map of the complex. ‘’We cannot tolerate this ... it’s an 18th century temple ... we should be allowed to offer puja there and the Complex must be demolished,’’ Mishra said.

According to the sources, the LDA officials assured to look into the matter.

It all started with the alleged ‘discovery’ of an ‘ancient’ Shiva Temple in a Muslim locality in Sambhal town, which had a few days back witnessed large scale violence during a court-mandated survey of a Mosque in which four persons were killed and scores others injured.

The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) had conducted surveys at several ‘ancient’ temples, wells and other religious places.

Similar ‘ancient’ temples were claimed to have been ‘unearthed’ by the saffron activists in Aligarh, Muzaffarnagar, Varanasi, Amethi and Kanpur, mostly in the Muslim-dominated localities.

Sanatan Rakshak Dal, a saffron outfit, claimed to have ‘unearthed’ another ‘ancient’ temple in the Muslim-dominated locality Madanpura in Varanasi, the Lok Sabha constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The temple, which was found in Madanpura area in the town, was closed and was said to be 250-years old, according to the saffron outfits.

While some claimed that these temples were not actually ‘unearthed’ but were already there for a long time and were closed after those taking care of them shifted elsewhere, some others said that the administration had knowledge about the existence of these 'closed' temples.

Interestingly, barring Sambhal, almost all other ‘ancient’ temples were ‘unearthed’ by saffron activists.

The officials, not wanting to come on record, do not rule out the possibility of more ‘ancient’ temples being ‘unearthed’ in the days to come, posing a huge challenge for the administration.