Places of Worship Act does not apply to Gyanvapi, says VHP

“There has been no change in the status of the religious structure since 1947, and Hindus have always performed puja at the site”

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad has claimed that The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act,1991, which mandates that the character of all religious places of worship should be maintained as it was on August 15, 1947, does not apply to the Gyanvapi Mosque dispute in Varanasi.

The Hindu right-wing outfit claims that there has been no change in the status of the religious structure since 1947 and that Hindus have always performed puja at the site. VHP international working president Alok Kumar said that the site where the “Shivling” was found was a temple and had been so even in 1947. He referred to it as the Gyanvapi Mandir.

Civil Judge, senior division, Ravi Kumar Diwakar on Monday ordered that a portion of the Gyanvapi Mosque premises be sealed after lawyers representing five Hindu plaintiffs claimed that a “Shivling” was found in the ablution water tank of the mosque on the concluding day of a court commissioner-led video inspection. The caretakers of the mosque, however, asserted that the object was a part of a stone fountain.

Mr. Kumar said, ”the place where the Shivling is, is a temple and it was one even in 1947. This has become self-evident.” He hoped that all citizens of the country would acknowledge and honour the “evidence” and the county would move towards its “natural culmination.”

On Tuesday, VHP national spokesperson Vinod Bansal said the Places of Worship Act, 1991 did not hinder the outfit’s view that the site where the “Shivling” was found was in essence a temple.

“We clearly believe that the status of the mandir never changed. It is a different matter that sometimes puja was regular and at other times it was official,” said Mr. Bansal. “We believe that it was a mandir in 1947 as puja was done then. And today there should be puja... and it is being done,” he said.

Mr. Bansal said the 1991 Act applied only to those structures whose status one wanted to change. “You want to make something else after breaking a structure.... it [the Act] might impact that. But we were doing Puja in 1947 and are still doing it today,” he said.