Gyanvapi mosque gives 1,700 sq ft of land for Kashi temple corridor project

After almost two years of negotiations, the Gyanvapi Masjid in Varanasi and the Kashi Viswanath Temple Trust have agreed for a land swap, with the Muslim community handing over 1,700 sq feet of land for the development of Kashi Vishwanath Dham (corridor). In return, the temple trust gave the mosque a piece of land measuring 1,000 sq feet.

Though the deal was finalised on July 9, a formal announcement was made on Friday. However, the dispute between the temple administration and the mosque committee regarding the survey of the entire premises by the Archaeological Survey of India is still in court.

According to the mosque committee, it was in 2019 that the temple authorities approached them requesting to hand over the land. 

"It was a verbal request to handover 1700 square feet of land to them so that they could make better security arrangements for the upcoming Kashi Vishwanath temple corridor. We told them we will consider it. The reason we took our time, about two years, was because this is a sensitive issue and had to be handled smartly," one of the mosque committee member was quoted as saying by The Quint.

In April this year, a court in Varanasi had ordered the ASI to conduct a survey of the Gyanvapi Masjid within the precincts of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple. The ASI was also directed to constitute a five-member committee of experts in archaeology. 

The judge was disposing off a suit asking for an expert opinion on the existence of the temple of Lord Vishweshwar which was destroyed on the orders of Aurangzeb in 1669 and a mosque built over it.