Hindu prayers allowed in Gyanvapi basement

The Varanasi district court on Wednesday allowed Hindus to offer prayers at the southern cellar of the Gyanvapi Masjid in the city, marking a decisive turn in the decades-old dispute that will have reverberations not only on a raft of linked suits over the shrine but also in similar petitions over a mosque in Mathura.

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District judge AK Vishvesha granted the family of a late priest the right to resume prayers in the southern cellar of the mosque after three decades, saying that the petitioner Shailendra Kumar Pathak Vyas and a priest appointed by the Kashi Vishwanath trust, which manages the temple next door, will be allowed to enter the premises.

Prayers which were last offered in December 1993-will have to resume within the next seven days, added the judge, whose last working day was Wednesday.

"District Magistrate, Varanasi/ Receiver is directed to get pooja, Raag-bhog of the idols in the cellar, the property in question, on the south side of the building situated at Settlement Plot No. 9130, Thana Chowk, District Varanasi, done from the plaintiff and the priest named by the Kashi Vishwanath Trust Board," the court said in its order.

The order is a victory for Hindu petitioners who asked for the rights to pray in the cellar one of four in the complex, all sealed right now- and expressed apprehension that the mosque committee might illegally annex it. If the prayers go ahead, this will be the first time in three decades that any Hindu rituals are conducted inside the mosque complex, fulfilling a longstanding ideological goal of Hindu groups.