Context:

  • Recently the Varanasi District Court allowed prayers in the southern cellar of the Gyanvapi mosque complex.
  • On January 24, 2024 the Varanasi district administration had taken possession of the southern cellar of the Gyanvapi mosque complex.
  • The above action is done after a Varanasi District Court order of January 17.
  • The court order appointed the district magistrate of Varanasi as the receiver of the cellar, also called ‘Vyasji ka tehkhana’.

About Vyasji ka tehkhana:

  • Vyasji ka tehkahana is located in the southern area of the mosque’s barricaded complex.
  • It faces the Nandi statue placed inside the Kashi Vishwanath complex near the sanctum sanctorum.
  • The tehkahana has a height of about 7 feet and carpet area of around 900 square feet.
  • Subhash Chaturvedi who is the lawyer of the petitioner Shailendra Pathak Vyas has said that the Vyas family had been conducting prayers and other rituals inside the tehkhana for more than 200 years, but the practice was stopped in December 1993.
  • The lawyer also informed that the tehkhana is located between the Nandi statue and the wuzookhana of the mosque, where Hindu petitioners have alleged that a shivling was found during a court mandated video-graphic survey in 2022.

Why was worship barred here?

  • The petitioner has argued that ‘Vyasji’s’ entry was prohibited in the tehkhana in December 1993, and hence the prayers being held here had to be discontinued due to his absence.
  • The government then in power prohibited worship inside the Vyasji ka tehkhana in the name of law and order.
  • Before the prohibition it is Pandit Somnath Vyas who had carried out Hindi worship rituals here regularly.