Hindu Side Wants Gyanvapi Basement To Be Handed Over To Varanasi Official

The advocate presenting the Hindu side in Gyanvapi case on Tuesday said a fresh request has been submitted in a district court in Varanasi seeking the handover of the basement on the complex from under the possession of the Vyas family to the District Magistrate.

This comes amid the ongoing survey at Gyanvapi complex by the Archaeological Survey of India.

The 'tahkhana' (basement) that is under the possession of the Vyas family is in the southern part of the Gyanvapi mosque.

The Hindu side of the case has demanded that the basement be handed over to the District Magistrate immediately and that he be appointed as its receiver.

"We have filed a civil suit on behalf of the Vyas family in the honourable civil court, Varanasi, and we have also applied before the Varanasi district court and district judge, to transfer the original trial to the district court, Varanasi, like it is doing in other cases," advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain told ANI.

"The demand in this is that a basement which is on the southern side of the Masjid can be taken over by the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee and hence we have demanded that the possession of this basement be handed over to DM immediately and that the DM be appointed its receiver," he said.

"We have gone to the district court with this demand. Today, a hearing has been done on our transfer application and Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee has appeared in this case and asked to reply. We will receive an order on the transfer application tomorrow. After that, further action will be taken in this case," he added.

The Vyas family of Varanasi continues to possess one of the four basements of the complex that was surveyed by Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).

In 1991, the Vyas family had filed a case demanding the handover of the Gyanvapi mosque structure to Hindus, claiming that except for the upper structure, where namaz is offered and the domes, the entire structure still stands on the Lord Visheshwar temple.

Though the Vyas family does not live in the Kashi Vishwanath-Gyanvapi complex anymore, one of the four basements of the mosque is still in their possession.

In August, the Allahabad High Court had allowed the Archaeological Survey of India to conduct a survey of the Gyanvapi mosque complex. The court on Friday granted four weeks' additional time to the ASI to complete their survey.

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