After Sambhal, another Uttar Pradesh mosque in legal battle over claim of ancient Shiva temple

A Hindu outfit claimed that it had been constructed after demolishing a Shiva temple by the Mughal rulers.

Lucknow: After the Sambhal Mosque, another mosque in Uttar Pradesh’s Badaun district has now embroiled in a legal battle after a Hindu outfit claimed that it had been constructed after demolishing a Shiva temple by the Muslim rulers and filed an application in the district court seeking its ownership.

The matter was heard on Tuesday by civil judge senior division, fast track court, Amit Kumar.

The lawyer for the Jama Masjid Intezamiya Committee Anwar Alam presented arguments in favour of the mosque and sought to rubbish the claim that the mosque had been built after demolishing a Shiva temple.

The court has fixed December 10 for further hearing of the matter.

Hindu Mahasabha leader Mukesh Patel had moved the district court two years back contending that the Jama Masjid was built after demolishing the Neelkanth Temple. The lawyer for the state government had already presented his arguments in the matter.

Patel claimed that there was plenty of evidence to suggest that there existed a Neelkanth Temple where the Jama Masjid stood today. ‘’There are idols….there are old pillars,’’ he claimed.

Patel said that the Muslim rulers demolished the temple and threw away the ‘Shivling’. ‘’A seer had installed the Shivling in another temple nearby,’’ he said.

The Hindu plaintiffs claim that the Neelkanth Temple was demolished during the period of Qutub-ud-din-Aibak, the first king of the Delhi Sultanate, who laid the foundation stone of Qutub Minar in Delhi, in the 13th century.

The lawyer for the Masjid Committee, however, said that the Mosque was 850 years old and that no temple ever existed there. Muslims claim that Sultan Shams-ud-din-Altmash of the Ghulam (slave) Dynasty had built the mosque in the year 1223.