An application has been filed before a court in Mathura(UP) seeking a ground radiology test by the Archaeological Survey of India(ASI) at the Jahanara mosque at Agra(popularly known as Jama Masjid Agra) to ascertain if the idols of Lord Krishna are buried beneath it.
The application is filed based on an assertion that Mughal emperor Aurangazeb, after razing down the Mathura Jamansthan temple, had taken the Lord Krishna idols from Mathura to Agra to bury them under the Jahanara mosque.
The application is moved in a civil suit filed this year on behalf of the deity Bhagwan Shrikrishna Virajmaan seeking to deliver the possession of the place in which Shahi Idgah at Mathura is located to the Sri Krishna Janambhoomi trust. The applicant says that as the entire issue in the suit revolves around the alleged encroachment of Aurangazeb into the Sri Krishna Janambhoomi, for proper adjudication, it is necessary to examine the Jahanara mosque for the idols.
According to the applicants, several historians say that the Eidgah is existing in the place of the prison cell where Lord Krishna was born.
The application makes a reference to the order passed by a Varanasi court last week allowing the ASI survey of the Gyanvapi mosque to ascertain if it was built over the demolished Kashi temple. The Court of Civil Judge Senior Division, Mathura, had issued a notice in the present suit on February 19. The application seeking ASI survey, filed today(April 14), is expected to be considered on May 10.
UP Sunni Central Waqf Board, which is managing the Shahi Eidgah, is the first defendant in the case.
Last year, the Mathura Civil Court had dismissed a similar suit filed on behalf of the deity that was not filed through the shebait and was filed through a devotee. “If each and every devotee is allowed to institute such suits, it would Jeopardize the Judicial and Social System”, the Court observed in order passed in September last year. The appeal is pending in the District Court against the dismissal of that suit.
The petitioner’s Counsel Shailendra Singh claimed that Historian Jadunath Sarkar in his book ‘Anecdotes of Aurangzeb and Historical Essay’, written in 1917, had made a mention that Keshav Dev temple in Agra was destroyed and its remnants were used in building staircase of Aara Mosque in Agra Fort.
The Counsel demanded that a GPR survey of both mosques in Mathura and Agra Fort by the Archaeological Survey of India will unearth the truth of how temples were demolished in Lord Krishna birthplace in Mathura to construct mosques.
In his petition, the petitioner has sought the removal of Shahi Majid Idgah from the Lord Krishna Janmabhoomi complex and handing over the mosque land back to the Trust. The case and the application will come up for hearing on May 10.
On April 8, a Varanasi Court had passed an order to set up a five-member committee under the ASI archaeologist for GPR mapping of Gyanvapi Mosque. The Gyanvapi Mosque management committee and Sunni Central Waqf Board have filed urgent petitions at the Allahabad High Court seeking a stay on the Varanasi Court order.
