Gyanvapi: Court admits pleas for carbon dating of entire complex

VARANASI: The Varanasi district judge's court admitted on Tuesday three petitions seeking a scientific study of the entire Gyanvapi mosque complex to ascertain "the age and nature of its construction", less than a week after the Allahabad high court authorised the use of ASI-recommended methods to date the purported shivling found in the ablution pond there.

The filing of the petitions coincided with the first anniversary of the shivling being found during a court-mandated survey of the complex on May 16 last year.

Anjuman Intezamia Masajid, which manages the mosque, has until May 19 to respond to the batch of petitions filed by nine people, including the four women plaintiffs leading the Hindu side's claim to unhindered access to the complex for daily worship of Shringar Gauri and other deities.

District judge Ajay Krishna Vishwesha will hear the pleas on May 22, the plaintiffs' counsel Vishnu Jain said.

The petitions argue that a detailed scientific investigation of the entire Gyanvapi mosque is crucial to determining whether the structure had been built over a pre-existing Hindu shrine, besides the antiquity of the main structure's western wall.

Counsel Jain argued that there were "numerous evidences, signs and symbols on walls, pillars and several points in the building" to establish these as "part of an old Hindu temple". According to the plaintiffs, the present structure stands on the plinth and base of the old shrine.

The petitions also contain the claim that there are "three old shikhars of a Hindu temple hidden under the present dome-like structure of mosque". "There is an old Jyotirlinga that has been covered by constructing a new structure over it...There are a number of Hindu artefacts within the northern cellar and beneath the floor of the cellars. Also, there are a number of Hindu artefacts inside the building in question."

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