Judge Ravi Kumar Diwakar, who ordered the sealing of the place where the Shivling was discovered inside the Gyanvapi mosque, has received threats. The threat letters were sent through registered post by Islamic Aaghaz Movement.
The judge has been accused of going ‘saffron’ in times of ‘hateful politics’ in the country. The Islamist group called him an ‘idol worshipper’ and ‘kafir’ and held that Muslims couldn’t expect fairness from a ‘saffronized’ judge. Diwakar has also been accused of taking the side of ‘Hindu extremists’. The letter further alleges that the judge would declare Mughals as looters under pressure from a Gujarati Prime Minister.
“Varanasi police commissioner A Satish Ganesh said security of the civil judge in Varanasi and his mother in Lucknow, which had already been enhanced since May 13, is being reviewed. Security has also been provided to the district judge, he said”, reports Times of India.
The Varanasi District Court had ordered the Gyanvapi mosque survey. On May 16, Civil Judge (Senior Division) Ravi Kumar Diwakar ordered that the Gyanvapi disputed structure be sealed following reports of a Shivling being discovered. The court noted that the discovery of the Shivling was a piece of important evidence. It then directed the CRPF to guard the complex. It also ordered the District Magistrate and the Police Commissioner to protect the site.
The reports of a Shivling being discovered in the wuzukhana had been dissed by the Muslim side who held that it was a ‘fountain’. The Muslim side has not only been resisting the survey report being made public but had earlier objected to the survey itself.
The Varanasi District Court had ordered the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to conduct an archaeological survey of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple-Gyanvapi mosque complex on a petition filed by a local lawyer VS Rastogi.
Rastogi had filed a petition demanding that the land entailing Gyanvapi Mosque be restored to Hindus as the mosque had been constructed in 1664 by Aurangzeb after destroying the 2000-year-old Kashi Vishwanath Temple that stood at the present site of the mosque.
“A petition filed in 1991 in a Varanasi court claimed that the Gyanvapi Mosque was built on the orders of Aurangzeb by demolishing a part of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple during his reign in the 16th century”, says India Today.
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