Indian court limits Muslim gatherings at mosque after Hindu idols found, lawyer says

LUCKNOW: A court in north India banned big Muslim prayer meetings on Monday after a survey team discovered relics of the Hindu god Shiva and other Hindu symbols there, according to a lawyer engaged in the case.

According to lawyer H S Jain, a judge in Varanasi – Hinduism’s holiest city and home to the famous Gyanvapi mosque — ruled that Islamic meetings in the city should be limited to 20 individuals.

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The court ordered the survey after five women, represented by Jain, asked for permission to perform Hindu ceremonies in one section of the mosque, claiming that a Hindu temple once stood there.

The Gyanvapi mosque, which is in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency, is one of several mosques in northern Uttar Pradesh that Hindu hardliners think were built on top of damaged Hindu temples, as are several other holy sites.

The court order, police claimed, will assist maintain peace and order at a time when hardline Hindu organisations linked to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have increased up demands to excavate inside some mosques and allow searches of the Taj Mahal mausoleum.

With the BJP’s implicit approval, leaders of India’s 200 million Muslims see such actions as attempts to undermine their rights to free worship and religious expression.

Keshav Prasad Maurya, the BJP’s deputy chief minister in Uttar Pradesh, told Reuters’ local TV partner

In 2019, the Supreme Court granted Hindus permission to construct a temple on the site of the disputed 16th-century Babri mosque, which was demolished by Hindu mobs in 1992, believing it to be the birthplace of Hindu Lord Ram.

The incident sparked religious riots across India, killing over 2,000 individuals, predominantly Muslims.