Shahi Idgah Mosque: Amidst Gyanvapi controversy, plea seeks to stop namaz at Mathura Mosque

The debate over Gyanvapi mosque continues. Meanwhile, lawyers and a section of law students demanded that namaz be stopped at the Shahi Idgah Mosque in the temple town of Mathura. Their plea to the court was that they should immediately be banned from coming to the Shahi Idgah Mosque to offer namaz. The petitioners claimed that the Shahi Idgah Mosque was actually the birthplace of Krishna. There was a temple at the site before the mosque. Shailendra Singh, one of the petitioner's lawyers, said, "This structure of the mosque is built on the remains of a Hindu temple. It is a temple and there is no merit in being a mosque on this structure.’’

They approached the court seeking a permanent ban on the Muslim community in the use of this structure, he added. Hindutva organisations have long claimed that mughal emperor Aurangzeb had demolished a portion of the Krishna temple and built the mosque there. As a result, the mosque must be removed.

Earlier too, various Hindutva organizations had filed 10 petitions in Mathura court demanding that the mosque be removed. There is also a Krishna temple adjacent to this mosque, the Katra Keshav Dev temple. Hindutva organizations also claimed that the area of the mosque was earlier of the Keshav Dev temple.

This year's Uttar Pradesh assembly elections had a special focus on the countrymen. The BJP claimed that the temple would also return if its party returned to power. The BJP also won the Mathura assembly constituency. BJP's Shrikant Sharma won by defeating his nearest rival Pradeep Mathur of the Congress by a margin of over one lakh. Political experts had earlier believed that if the BJP wins in Mathura, the temple-mosque dispute could also rise in the city.