Pleas filed to stop namaz at Mathura mosque, seal complex
AGRA: Two Hindu lawyers filed two separate pleas in local courts in Mathura on Tuesday, one demanding that Muslims be restricted from offering namaz at the Shahi Eidgah and another asking it be sealed to ensure that no changes are made in the premises where Hindu petitioners claim religious symbols are present.
The mosque, which abuts the Sri Krishna Temple in Mathura, is part of a decades-old dispute, with some Hindu groups saying a part of the temple was demolished to build the mosque. Currently, nine petitions are pending before lower courts in Mathura on the subject.
Shailendra Singh, a Lucknowbased lawyer, filed a petition before the court of the district judge, Mathura, seeking permission to file the suit in representative capacity and to restrain Muslims from offering prayers at the Shahi Eidgah.
“We are of the belief that the
Shahi Eidgah mosque has come up at the place where a temple existed. It was here Lord Krishna was born. We thus seek that Muslims be restrained by permanent injunction from offering prayers at the Shahi Eidgah,” said Singh.
A second application, to appoint a security officer to ensure no changes are made in the mosque premises was moved before the court of civil judge (senior division), Mathura, Jyoti Singh, by one of the petitioners in the Sri Krishna Janmabhoomi title suit.
After hearing the petitioner, the judge posted the application for hearing on July 1.
“Much like the findings at Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi, there are Hindu religious markings within the Shahi Eidgah mosque that can prove it was originally a temple,” said lawyer Mahendra Pratap Singh, the counsel for the petitioner Thakur Keshav Dev Ji Maharaj (the deity).
Mahendra Singh further said that the application also sought to seal the Shahi Eidgah mosque.
“This could be done by prohibiting movement on its premises,” said Singh. Tanveer Ahmad, counsel for the management committee of the Shahi Eidgah mosque, however, blamed the petitioners for moving multiple applications, mostly not on the date fixed, without providing a copy of them. “The case is fixed for arguments on maintainability of the case on July 1 and wary of its dismissal the petitioners are filing misleading applications,” he said.