Allahabad HC declines stay on plea to halt Hindu prayers in Gyanvapi mosque

The Allahabad High Court on Friday declined an interim stay on a Varanasi court order allowing Hindu prayers in the historic Gyanvapi mosque cellar and asked the Muslim side to amend its plea.

The ruling came even as shops and parts of Muslim-dominated areas remained shut on Friday following the earlier district court order allowing Hindu prayers.

Justice Rohit Ranjan Agrawal of the high court passed the order while hearing an appeal filed by the Anzuman Intezamia Masjid Committee, which looks after the affairs of the mosque. The hearing in the case was adjourned till February 6.

The committee moved the high court within hours of the Supreme Court refusing to hear its plea against the Varanasi district court order and asked it to approach the high court.

The committee, which then challenged the order of the lower court in the high court, called for a shutdown on Friday in the holy town.

In response, Muslim-dominated market areas in Dalmandi, Nai Sadak, Nadesar and Ardal areas were shuttered.

The committee urged shopkeepers to close their markets and asked people to offer the Friday prayers peacefully. It advised Muslim women to remain in their houses.

Additional police force has been mobilised from neighbouring districts of Uttar Pradesh to maintain peace, police officials said.

Additional security forces have also been deployed near and around the Kashi Vishwanath Dham, Varanasi’s most revered Hindu temple.

The Varanasi court ruled on Wednesday that a priest can perform prayers before the idols in the southern cellar of the Gyanvapi mosque, which Hindu radicals say was built after razing parts of a Hindu temple.

(With agency inputs)