On Thursday, the Supreme Court requested that the Anjuman Intezamia Masajid, who had petitioned it in opposition to the Varanasi district court’s ruling permitting Hindus to do prayers in the southern cellar of the Gyanvapi mosque, file a case with the Allahabad High Court.
Thus, the committee for the mosque filed a case with the Allahabad High Court. “We are contesting the District Court’s ruling that permits puja in the basement,” a lawyer for the mosque committee stated.
The Advocate on Record for the mosque committee, Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi, filed an urgent plea with the Supreme Court early on Thursday morning, requesting its intervention.
“Under the garb of the order dated 31.01.2024, the local administration, in hot haste, has deployed a massive police force on site and is in the process of cutting the grills located in the southern side of the mosque so as to create an entrance therefrom into the mosque premises to allow puja in the mosque basement,” Ayyubi wrote in a “letter of extreme urgency” to the registrar of the Supreme Court. The letter and the spirit of the directives are broken by this action.
The letter went on to say, “The trial court’s order gave the administration one week to make the required arrangements, so there’s no need for them to rush through this assignment in the middle of the night. The government is working with the plaintiffs to present the mosque managing committee with a fait accompli in order to prevent them from pursuing their legal remedies against the aforementioned order, which is the clear reason for their unseemly haste.
“To ensure that mamaz and other religious observations at the mosque are not disturbed,” the letter continued, requesting a hearing.
