Mathura Court Admits Petition Seeking Removal of Mosque from Krishna 'Janmabhoomi'

A Mathura court on Friday admitted a plea seeking to remove a mosque situated adjacent to Krishna Janmabhoomi in the Uttar Pradesh city.

Last month, a Mathura civil court had dismissed a suit filed to remove the Idgah Mosque alleging it was built over Krishna Janmabhoomi.

The court of district judge Sadhna Rani Thakur on Friday accepted the appeal. The court will next hear the matter on November 18.

A group of people had moved the Mathura court over the 17th century Shahi Idgah mosque they claim was built at the birthplace of Krishna, within the 13 acre premises of the Katra Keshav Dev temple. The earlier petition, filed in the court of Senior Civil Judge Chhaya Sharma, had also demanded the annulment of a 1968 Mathura court ruling ratifying a land deal reached between the Shri Krishna Janmasthan Seva Sansthan and Shahi Idgah Management Committee.

The suit was filed last month on behalf of child deity Bhagwan Shrikrishna Virajman through the “next friend” Ranjana Agnihotri and seven others. Next friend is a legal term for a person who represents someone directly unable to maintain a suit. The defendants in the case were the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board, the Shahi Masjid Idgah Trust, the Shri Krishna Janambhoomi Trust and Shri Krishna Janmasthan Seva Sansthan, Jain said.

However, another body of priests had condemned the filing of the petition for the removal of the Shahi Idgah mosque. The Akhil Bharatiya Tirth Purohit Mahasabha president Mahesh Pathak said “some outsiders” were trying to disturb the peace in Mathura by raising a frivolous temple-mosque issue.

There is no temple-mosque dispute in Mathura at Srikrishna Janmasthan after a compromise between both the parties in the 20th century, he had said. The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 froze the status of religious places as it existed at the time of Independence. The Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid structure was exempted from the law’s purview.