Now, petition alleges Shiva temple beneath Ajmer Sharif Dargah; court issues notices to minority affairs ministry and ASI.

News Mania Desk / Piyal Chatterjee / 30th November 2024

Even as Sambhal district in Uttar Pradesh remains on edge following a court-ordered survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid, a local court in Rajasthan’s Ajmer issued notices to the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs, the Archaeological Survey of India, and the Ajmer Dargah Committee on Wednesday regarding a petition seeking a survey of the renowned Ajmer Sharif Dargah. The appeal was filed by Hindu Sena chief Vishnu Gupta, said that the Ajmer Sharif Dargah has a temple similar to those found in Kashi and Mathura.

Civil Judge Manmohan Chandel issued notifications after Gupta claimed in his plea that the dargah, or shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, was a Shiva temple. So far, the court order has not been made available online or distributed to the petitioners.

“The court asked us why we are filing it. We told the court everything and after listening to us earnestly, the court issued notice to the concerned parties once it was satisfied,” Gupta told The Indian Express.

He claimed that Har Bilas Sarda, “who held an important position during British Rule, wrote in 1910 about the presence of a Hindu temple”.

According to Gupta, in one of his books, Sarda, a judge, politician and an academic, wrote about the dargah: “Tradition says that inside the cellar is the image of Mahadeva in a temple, on which sandal used to be placed every day by a Brahmin family still maintained by the dargah as gharyali (bell striker)”.

“There are roads in Ajmer named after Sarda, so we said that the court should take his words seriously, that at least a survey should be done so that the truth comes out,” Gupta said, claiming that “the Ajmer structure was constructed after demolishing Hindu and Jain temples”.

“Locals say that as recently as 50 years ago, a priest used to pray there, and there used to be shivling too, which was moved to the basement. So, a survey should be done so that everyone becomes clear,” he said, while citing other “evidences”.

He claimed that his outfit wanted the dargah to be declared a Hindu temple “and if it has a registration, it should be cancelled, an ASI survey should be conducted, and that we should be permitted to pray”.

Ajmer Dargah will observe its 813th Urs in January next year. About this, Gupta said, “Chishti saheb wasn’t born here and he wasn’t from here. So, who was here before him? Prithviraj Chauhan. And the city was known as Ajaymeru.”

Syed Sarwar Chishty, secretary of Anjuman Syed Zadgan — a body of Dargah caretakers – said: “We swallowed a bitter pill after Babri Masjid and accepted it in the interest of the nation, believing that something like that won’t repeat. But Kashi, Mathura, Sambhal … it refuses to stop. On June 22, (RSS chief) Mohan Bhagwat had said that people shouldn’t look for a Shivling in every mosque.” Chishty said that “it is the fault of retired Chief Justice of India Justice D Y Chandrachud” for the recent flurry of cases.

“The Dargah is a symbol of communal harmony, diversity and pluralism. It promotes unity in diversity and there are crores of followers of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti across the world… Such things are not in the interest of the nation,” he said.

In September, when the case was first transferred to the current court, he had said, “This is not a joke that every other day criminals come forward with a new claim. In 2007, a man named Bhavesh Patel was arrested in a bomb blast in the dargah… The dargah has been a place of worship for all religions and it will remain such.”

The next hearing in the matter is scheduled for December 20.

This comes a week after Rajasthan’s Bhajan Lal Sharma administration renamed Ajmer’s Hotel Khadim — a Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation project — as Ajaymeru. Assembly Speaker Vasudev Devnani, an MLA from Ajmer North, has campaigned for the name change, claiming that Ajmer was known as Ajaymeru during the time of Rajasthan’s 12th Century warrior king Prithviraj Chauhan, and that it was mentioned in old Indian manuscripts and history books.

Last week, a district court in Sambhal had ordered a survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid, in response to a plea which claimed that it was built on the site of a Hindu temple. This is similar to claims made in the cases of Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi, the Shahi Idgah in Mathura, and the Kamal-Maula mosque in Madhya Pradesh’s Dhar.