A court in Rajasthan Ajmer has agreed to hear a petition claiming that Ajmer Sharif Dargah is a Hindu temple. The petition filed by Hindu Sena claiming that the mausoleum of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti is Shiva temple has been accepted by a lower court in Ajmer.
Ajmer West Civil Judge (Senior Division) Manmohan Chandel decided to accept the petition filed by Hindu Sena president Vishnu Gupta, and the matter has been scheduled for hearing on 20 December. The court ordered summon notices to be issued to the Ajmer Sharif Dargah Committee, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in the matter.
The Hindu Sena in September filed a petition at the Ajmer civil court demanding that the Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti Dargah be declared ‘Bhagwan Shri Sankatmochan Mahadev Virajman Temple’. The plea asserted that the Dargah was built on the site of a Shiva temple. The petition said that it is based on facts derived from authentic sources, and demanded that the Sufi shrine be removed from the premises.
Hindu Sena is also seeking direction to the Archaeological Survey of India to conduct a survey at the site, on the lines of the Gyanvapi survey in Varanasi, and then the reconstruction of a Shiva temple at the site.
The petition says that Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti came to Ajmer with Mohammad Ghori, and that Ghori destroyed a large number of Hindu temples, including the Sankat Mochan Mahadev temple in Ajmer, after killing Prithviraj Chauhan. Hindu Sena claims that the design of the main entrance gate of the Ajmer shrine resembled a Hindu structure, and historical records suggested the existence of a Shiva temple at the site.
The development comes days after violence erupted in Sambhal in Uttar Pradesh after a court ordered a survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid in Sambhal over claims that it was a Hindu temple.
Rajasthan: A lower court has accepted a petition that refers to the Ajmer Sharif Dargah as a Hindu temple. The next hearing will be on December 20. The petition, filed by the Hindu Sena, claims that the dargah was originally a Shiva temple. Syed Sarwar Chishti, the secretary of… pic.twitter.com/1pAYwcO96j
— IANS (@ians_india) November 27, 2024
Syed Sarwar Chishti, the secretary of the Ajmer Dargah caretakers’ organization, Anjuman Syed Zadgan, called the petition a part of a larger conspiracy.
