A petition has been filed at the district court in Varanasi seeking permission to carry out “necessary repairs and maintenance” of the tehkhana (cellar) of the old temple complex at Kashi.
The court had allowed the Hindu side to conduct prayers inside the cellar (Vyas ji tehkhana) on January 31.
The four petitioners—Akansha Tiwari, Deepak Prakash Shukla, Suvid Praveen Kanchan and Amit Kumar—said that after prayers were permitted in the cellar, there has been an increase in footfall in the mosque above.
“Since the worship started in the basement, there has been a sudden increase in the unwanted and unnecessary gathering of Namajis on the roof; due to this, there is too much pressure,” reads the petition.
“The stone walls and ceiling near the place of worship in the basement... being very old, weak, and dilapidated, water is continuously leaking from the ceiling, and one of the stone beams on the ceiling has also cracked,” it said.
The petition also labelled the increase in visitors to the mosque as "ill-intentioned” aimed at “anyhow trying to damage or demolish the roof so that the worship and darshan going on inside the cellar can be stopped”.
The petitioners also argued that the wearing of shoes and slippers above the cellar should be stopped as it is a “direct insult” to the faith of “cores of Bharatiya and the Hindus/Sanatani throughout the world”.
On February 26, the Allahabad High Court dismissed pleas to stop worship in the cellar of the old temple complex at Kashi. The pleas had been filed against two orders passed by the Varanasi district judge on suits in which the Anjuman Intezamia Masajid Committee was the respondent.
The court’s main contention while passing the order was that there was no claim made by the Muslim side earlier on the cellar, and thus Hindus were free to worship the “visible and invisible” deities placed there.