At the guts of the new stress across the disputed Kashi Vishwanath Temple-Gyanvapi Mosque complicated in Varanasi are 5 girls petitioners, one Delhi-based, 4 dwelling in Varanasi, the youngest 35, the oldest 65. Apart from love for ‘Goddess Maa Shringar Gauri’, what connects most of them is an opportunity satsang assembly, whereas not less than two have some hyperlinks to Hindu outfits.
It is their petition looking for that they be allowed to wish at ‘a Shringar Gauri Sthal’ contained in the complicated that led a Civil Judge (Senior Division), Varanasi, to order a videographic inspection. While the mosque administration committee has objected to the identical, on Thursday, the native court docket directed that the inspection would go forward, with a report back to be submitted by May 17.
The mosque facet had additionally objected to the Advocate Commissioner appointed by the court docket for the inspection as “biased”, and on Thursday, the court docket appointed two extra.
While Laxmi Devi, Sita Sahu, Manju Vyas and Rekha Pathak reside in Varanasi and have been current at each listening to of the case – which started in August 2021 — the fifth and essential petitioner, Rakhi Singh, relies in Delhi and has not been to court docket.
Singh’s curiosity appears to originate from her hyperlinks to the ‘Vishwa Vedic Sanathan Sangh’. The 35-year-old is a ‘founder member’ of the outfit, which claims to have carried out “coordination” for the petition. Her uncle, Jitendra Singh Bishen, is the president of the Sangh.
Santosh Singh, the UP convenor of the Vishwa Vedic Sanathan Sangh, says the outfit coordinated with 4 of the ladies and introduced them collectively to file the Gyanvapi petition in August 2021. “We are managing the whole case.”
Then there may be the husband of Laxmi Devi, 65. Sohan Lal Arya, a senior VHP office-bearer in Varanasi, claims it was he who “inspired and brought together the five women (petitioners)”. Arya, 71, can also be the “pairokar (litigants’ agent)” within the petition.
The VHP Varanasi Mahanagar vice-president and spokesperson since 1984, he informed The Indian Express: “I inspired the five women to file the petition in the Varanasi court. The five women, including my wife Laxmi Devi, were chosen by me.”
Arya, who claims to have been related to the RSS since childhood, says he filed his first petition relating to the Kashi Vishwanath-Gyanvapi matter in a Varanasi court docket in 1985. This time, he provides, he determined to place girls within the entrance as it’s they who pray to Goddess Maa Shringar Gauri. “I selected the 4 girls as I wanted some girls to file the petition. I did not have every other names, so I picked them up.”
The Vishwa Vedic Sanathan Sangh was based in 2018 “for the cause of Hindutva”. Headquartered in Uttar Pradesh’s Gonda district, it claims to have an workplace in New Delhi and several other different states.
The outfit has additionally filed circumstances over the standing of Qutub Minar in a New Delhi court docket (on Tuesday, some Hindu activists tried to recite Hanuman Chalisa there, claiming it was Vishnu Stambh); in addition to one relating to the Krishna Janmasthan in a Mathura court docket, which additionally entails a dispute with a mosque.
Sita Sahu, one of many 5 petitioners, has one other account of how they got here collectively for the case. “Four of us met at a satsang and decided to file the petition. We were contacted by Rakhi Singh saying she wanted to be a part of the petition, so we included her too.”
Rakhi Singh, 35
The essential petitioner, the Delhi-based Rakhi Singh is a founding member of the Vishwa Vedic Sanathan Sangh. Singh has not appeared for any of the hearings within the case, and remained unreachable for remark.
The outfit’s UP convenor, Santosh Singh, says Rakhi Singh “is a social worker working for the cause of Hindutva”. On her curiosity within the temple-mosque complicated, Santosh Singh says: “She has visited Varanasi multiple times and is a worshiper of Goddess Maa Shringar Gauri.”
Laxmi Devi, 65
Laxmi Devi’s husband, VHP chief Sohan Lal Arya, says she is a homemaker who has by no means been related to any outfit or organisation. “She barely ever leaves the house,” he provides, together with to come back to the court docket listening to. So Arya seems on her behalf.
The couple reside in Varanasi’s Mahmoorganj space.
Sita Sahu, 40
The married Sahu runs a small basic retailer from her home in Chetganj space of Varanasi, simply 2 km from the complicated. While she has by no means been related to any outfit or organisation, she says, “we are doing work for Hindu religion and filed the petition because we are not allowed to properly worship our Goddess at the temple”.
Manju Vyas, 49
Vyas runs a magnificence parlor from her home positioned 1.5 km from the Gyanvapi complicated and isn’t a member or office-bearer of any outfit or group both. Apart from her small enterprise, she says, she “looks after my family”. Her curiosity is to wish on the Shringar Gauri Sthal, she says.
Rekha Pathak, 35
Pathak, a resident of Hanuman Pathak space, which can also be positioned within the neighborhood of the Kashi Vishwanath temple complicated, is a homemaker. She says she turned part of the petition for the reason for her Goddess. “I felt bad that women who go to the temple for worship are not allowed past the barricading, so I became a part of the petition. The decision to file the petition was taken by us during a satsang of the temple because all of us worship the Goddess,” she says.
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
