Varanasi court reserves order on plea for worshipping rights in Gyanvapi Mosque's basement, verdict likely on Wednesday

Lucknow: A Varanasi court on Tuesday completed hearing on the plea by the Hindu plaintiffs seeking worshipping rights in the 'tehkhana' (basement) of the contentious Gyanvapi Mosque and reserved its order.

Vishnu Shankar Jain, the lawyer of the Hindu plaintiffs, said in Varanasi that the district court was likely to pronounce its verdict in the matter on Wednesday.

The Hindu side contended that worshipping was carried on in the basement by one Somenath Vyas and his family until November 1993 and that the then Mulayam Singh Yadav government in the state had banned worshipping there after November 1993.

Jain pleaded that worshipping rights in the basement of the Mosque be restored.

The Anjuman Intezamiya, which looked after the Mosque, opposed the plea contending that the basement was part of the Mosque and that right to worship there could not be granted.

The court had earlier handed over the maintenance and security of the basement to the district administration in Varanasi.

The premises had been a bone of contention between the two communities for the past several decades but there was renewed clamor to ''take back'' the Kashi Vishwanath Temple premises by the saffron outfits after the favourable decision of the apex court in the Ram Temple case.

The Hindu petitioners contended that a part of the temple had been demolished by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in the 17th century. The Muslim side contended that the Mosque existed before the reign of Aurangzeb and also claimed that the same had also been mentioned in the land records.

The Hindu side's lawyer had earlier claimed that the report of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which conducted a scientific survey of the contentious Gyanvapi Mosque premises in Varanasi and submitted the survey report in the district court earlier, found evidence of a Hindu temple there.

The lawyer of the Muslim plaintiffs in the Kashi Vishwanath-Gyanvapi Mosque case, however, refuted claims and said that '''broken idols'' were no proof there existed a Hindu temple in the Gyanvapi Mosque complex.