Rituals of puja in a cellar of the Gyanvapi Masjid began on Thursday after the court on Wednesday granted permission to worship idol in the 'Vyas Ka Tekhana.' This was a significant development in the legal battle over the mosque adjacent to the Kashi Vishwanath temple. A look at first visuals of 'puja' at Vyas basement of Gyanvapi in Varanasi:
Official sources in the district administration said at around 9.30 pm on Wednesday, the members of the Kashi-Vishwanath Trust were called and the barricades before the Nandi statue facing the mosque's 'wazukhana' were removed.
The court had directed the local administration to make arrangements within seven days for prayers in the cellar. This will involve "proper arrangements" with metal barricades at the complex, it said.
What is the case
The order by judge A K Vishvesha comes day after an Archeological Survey of India (ASI) report on the mosque complex was made public. The ASI survey, ordered by the same court, in connection with a related case, suggested that the mosque was constructed during Aurangzeb's rule over the remains of a Hindu temple. Wednesday's order was delivered on the plea of Shailendra Kumar Pathak who claimed that his maternal grandfather, priest Somnath Vyas, offered prayers till December 1993, advocate Yadav said. He said the puja was stopped during the tenure of chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav after the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya was demolished on December 6, 1992.
