Hindu prayers begin inside India’s Mughal-era mosque after court order
Al Jazeera
Worshippers are praying inside the 17th century mosque adjacent to a Hindu temple in Varanasi after the court order.
Hindu worshippers have begun praying inside a 17th-century mosque in the Indian city of Varanasi, hours after a court order gave them the go-ahead at the disputed site.
The Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi is one of several Muslim places of worship that right-wing Hindu groups, backed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have sought for decades to reclaim.
Varanasi is Modi’s parliamentary constituency in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, also governed by the BJP.
On Wednesday, a local court ruled that Hindu worshippers could pray in the building’s basement and ordered the authorities to “make proper arrangements” for worshippers within a week.
Indian media reports said the family members of Hindu priests started praying in the mosque’s basement in the early hours of Thursday.
