In a significant development, a Rajasthan court has issued notices in response to a lawsuit claiming that a Hindu temple exists beneath the premises of the Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti shrine in Ajmer. The suit was brought forward by Hindu groups demanding the right to worship at the site.
The case, presided over by Civil Judge Manmohan Chandel, was initiated by Vishnu Gupta, the national president of the Hindu Sena. The lawsuit, filed in September, is titled “Bhagwan Shri Sankat Mochak Mahadev Virajman vs. Dargah Committee.” The court has summoned the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs, the Ajmer Dargah Committee, and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which has also been named in the suit. The next hearing is set for December 20.
The petitioner’s counsel, Ramswaroop Bishnoi, referenced a 1911 publication, Ajmer: Historical and Descriptive by retired judge Harvilas Sharda, which suggests that debris from a Hindu temple was utilized in constructing the dargah. The book details a basement within the dargah that supposedly houses a Shiva Lingam, traditionally worshipped by a Brahmin family, and indicates the presence of remnants from a Jain temple in the structure of the dargah’s 75-feet-high buland darwaza.
The petition has also led to a request for ASI to survey the dargah, focusing on the area where the Shiva Lingam is said to be located, with the intent of reinstating worship at the site.
In response to the court’s action, Syed Sarwar Chishti, the secretary of the Anjuman Committee which oversees the shrine’s caretakers, expressed concerns about the implications of such disputes. He cited the Places of Worship Act of 1991, noting that it mandates maintaining the religious status quo of sites as it was in 1947, excluding the Babri Masjid case. Chishti underscored the shrine’s long history of over 800 years and disputed the jurisdiction of ASI over the dargah, which is under the purview of the Ministry of Minorities.
This case emerges amidst rising tensions, similar to recent events in Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal district, where claims by Hindu groups about the Shahi Jama Masjid being built over a razed Hindu temple led to violence following a court-ordered survey. There are ongoing judicial proceedings in Varanasi and Mathura as well, where Hindu groups claim that temples were destroyed to build the Gyanvapi Masjid and the Shahi Eidgah respectively.
