A court in Rajasthan's Ajmer has issued notices to the Centre and the ASI after a petition claimed that the dargah of Sufi saint Moinuddin Chishti was built over a Shiva temple. Filed in September, the petition seeks permission for Hindus to resume worship at the site. The petitioner's advocate, Yogesh Siroja, said that civil judge Manmohan Chandel has ordered notices to the Ajmer Dargah Committee, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, and the ASI’s New Delhi office, requesting their responses.
Vishnu Gupta, chief of the right-wing group Hindu Sena and the petitioner in the case, said, "Our demand was that the Ajmer dargah should be declared as Sankat Mochan Mahadev Temple. If the dargah has any kind of registration, then it should be cancelled. Its survey should be done through ASI and Hindus should be given the right to worship there."
The petition cites the 1911 book Ajmer: Historical and Descriptive by retired judge Harvilas Sharda, which claims that debris from a Shiva temple was used to construct the dargah and that Hindu carvings and iconography are visible around the site, including on the Buland Darwaza. It also alleges the existence of a Jain temple within the sanctum sanctorum.
The controversy follows similar claims about religious sites in Varanasi, Mathura, and Bhojshala in Dhar. The court's order also comes in the wake of violence in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, where four people died after a local court ordered a survey of a mosque, allegedly built over a demolished temple.
Denying the allegations, Syed Sarwar Chishti, secretary of Anjuman Syed Jadgan, said the Ajmer dargah promotes pluralism and unity in diversity, drawing millions of followers from across the world, including Afghanistan and Indonesia.
"Such acts are against communal harmony and nation. The court has issued notices to three parties today. We will see what we can do. Such acts of targeting age-old mosques in Kashi, Mathura are not good," he was quoted as saying by news agency IANS.
The next hearing is scheduled for December 20.