Gyanvapi: Daily aarti to be held 5 times at Vyas Ka Tahkhana, says Hindu side lawyer

Vishnu Shankar Jain, the lawyer of the Hindu side in the Gyanvapi case, on Thursday, said every day aarti will be held five times at Vyas ka Tahkana where the Varanasi district court allowed the Hindu side to offer prayers.

In a historic verdict, the district court on Wednesday allowed Hindus to offer prayers at a basement cell called Vyas ka Tahkana. “Timings for Aarti at Vyas cellar. Daily 5 aarti –Mangla- 3:30 am, Bhog- 12 pm, Apranh- 4 pm, Sanykaal- 7 pm, Shayan- 10:30 pm. 2 done so far,” Jain said in a post on X.

Vyas Ka Tahkhana — the name denotes that the cell belonged to the Vyas family. Jitendra Nath Vyas, a member of the Vyas family, offered and said he was very happy that he got permission to resume prayers there. Gyanvapi mosque has four ‘tahkhanas’ (cellars) in the basement of which one is still in the possession of the Vyas family, who used to live there. Vyas petitioned that as a hereditary pujari he be allowed to enter the tahkhana and resume offering prayers.

What was the ‘hot haste’, Muslim side asks
The Varanasi district court passed the order allowing Hindus to offer prayers on Wednesday and said arrangements for the same should be done within seven days. But arrangements were made within hours and the gates of the tahkhana were opened late on Wednesday night. The first puja was offered at around 3.30am.

The Muslim side questioned the ‘hot haste’ in which the administration worked to comply with the court order. The administration was in collusion with the plaintiffs and acted hurriedly to block any attempt of the mosque committee to avail of their remedies, the mosque committee said as they moved the Allahabad high court challenging the Varanasi district court’s order.

“There is no reason for the administration to undertake this task in hot haste in the dead of the night as the order passed by the Trial Court had already given them one week to make the necessary arrangements. The obvious reason for such unseemly haste is that the administration in collusion with the plaintiffs is trying to foreclose any attempt by the Mosque Managing Committee to avail of their remedies against the said order by presenting them with a fait accompli,” the Muslim side said.

The Vyas family claimed to have been performing puja in the tahkhana till December 1993. Shailendra Kumar Pathak Vyas said his maternal grandfather Somnath Vyas used to perform prayers there till 1993 when the cellar was closed by the authorities.