Order to survey Gyanvapi mosque, seal premises unfair, says Muslim personal law board

The All-India Muslim Personal Law Board has condemned the survey of Gyanvapi mosque complex, claiming that it is "unfair" and “an attempt to create communal disharmony”.

The All-India Muslim Personal Law Board has claimed that the sealing of a well in Gyanvapi Masjid complex was "unfair" and an "attempt to create communal disharmony". The well was sealed following a sensational claim by a Hindu lawyer that a shivling had been found inside the well at the Gyanvapi Masjid complex.

On Monday, a court-mandated videography survey of the Gyanvapi Masjid complex in Uttar Pradesh's Varanasi concluded amid tight security. Following the Hindu lawyer’s claim that a shivling had been found in a well inside the premise, a civil court issued an order to seal the area and prohibit entry of people in the area.

Reacting to the development, the Islamic body claimed that “the order to survey the mosque and its premises, and on the basis of the survey, to seal the area, is completely unfair.”

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In a statement issued late Monday night, AIMPLB general secretary Khalid Saifullah Rahmani said, "The Gyanvapi mosque is a mosque and will remain a mosque. The attempt to term it a temple is nothing more than a conspiracy to create communal disharmony. It is a matter of constitutional rights and is against the law."

"In 1937, in the case of Deen Mohammad Vs State Secretary, the court had decided on the basis of oral testimony and documents that this entire compound (Gyanvapi mosque complex) belongs to the Muslim Waqf and Muslims have the right to offer namaz in it," he said.

Rahmani added that the court had also decided that how much area is of the mosque and how much is of the temple. At the same time, the wazookhana, which is a small reservoir used by Muslim devotees to perform ritual ablutions before offering the namaz, was accepted as the property of the mosque.