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The district court in Varanasi will issue an order today on a request by Hindu women petitioners for carbon dating of a purported "Shivling" at Gyanvapi mosque.
Digital Desk: The senior-most judge of the Varanasi court is expected to rule today on a request by Hindu women petitioners for a scientific investigation, including carbon dating, of a purported "Shivling" discovered inside the Gyanvapi mosque complex earlier this year during a video survey conducted on the orders of a lower court in the temple town.
Four of the five Hindu women petitioners, whose original request to pray at a shrine inside the Gyanvapi mosque is still being heard in the district judge's court, filed the "scientific investigation" request last month, claiming it was necessary to determine the age of the "Shivling."
In their petition, the women stated that such an investigation could involve carbon dating and be conducted by the Archaeological Survey of India, a government body.
One of the five Hindu women, however, had taken a different stance, objecting to the four other women's request for scientific investigation, claiming that any testing, including carbon dating, could harm the "Shivling."
The mosque committee had also objected to the scientific investigation request, claiming that the Hindu women's case was about worshipping at a shrine within the mosque and had nothing to do with the mosque's structure. The mosque committee stated that the object referred to as a "Shivling" was a "fountain."
On September 12, a district judge in Varanasi dismissed a challenge by the mosque committee, claiming that the Hindu women's case for year-round worship inside the mosque complex lacked legal standing.
Their challenge was rejected on all three of the grounds they raised. The most important of these is a 1991 law that freezes a place of worship's status as it existed on August 15, 1947. The petitioners did not want to be owners. The petitioners did not seek ownership, only the right to worship, according to the court.
Based on the women's petition, a lower court in Varanasi ordered the filming of the centuries-old mosque earlier this year. According to a videography report leaked by Hindu petitioners, a "Shivling" or relic of Lord Shiva was discovered in a pond within the mosque complex used for Wazoo or purification rituals before Muslim prayers.
The Gyanvapi Mosque, in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's constituency of Varanasi, is one of several mosques that Hindu hardliners believe were built on temple ruins. It was one of three temple-mosque rows raised by the BJP in the 1980s and 1990s, along with Ayodhya and Mathura, that gained national prominence.
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