A ruling party leader in India has moved the Allahabad High Court for measures over a fact-finding inquiry into the "history" of the Taj Mahal, and to open the doors of its 22 rooms to see "the truth, whatever it is," reports NDTV.
The petitioner Rajneesh Singh, who is the media in-charge of the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Ayodhya unit in Madhya Pradesh, which is ruled by Hindu hardliner Yogi Adityanath, says these rooms may have accommodated idols of Hindu gods and scriptures.
Filed on Saturday in the registry of the Lucknow bench of the High Court, the petition would come up before the court for a hearing after it is passed by the registry.
"In the petition, I have demanded that the 22 doors of rooms of the monument which are closed should be opened to see the truth, whatever it is," Rajneesh told the PTI on Sunday.
The Mughal-era monument in Agra is protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).
“There is an old controversy related to the Taj Mahal. Around 20 rooms in Taj Mahal are locked and no one is allowed to enter,” he told another news outlet.
“It is believed that in these rooms there are idols of Hindu gods and scriptures. I have filed a petition in the High Court seeking directives to the ASI to open these rooms to ascertain facts. There is no harm in opening these rooms and setting to rest all controversies,” he concluded.
The petition has also sought setting aside certain provisions of The Ancient and Historical Monuments and Archeological Sites and Remains (Declaration of National Importance) Act 1951, and The Ancient Monuments and Archeological Sites and Remains Act 1958, under which the Taj Mahal, Fatehpur Sikri, Agra Fort, Itimad-ud-Daulah's tomb were declared historical monuments.
Rajneesh has filed the petition through his lawyers Ram Prakash Shukla and Rudra Vikram Singh. Several right-wing outfits have claimed in the past the Taj Mahal was a Lord Shiva temple.
Previous suits
In 2015, six lawyers filed cases claiming that the Taj Mahal was originally a Shiva shrine, according to News18.
In 2017, BJP leader Vinay Katiyar repeated the claim and asked UP CM Yogi Adityanath to travel to the monument to look at the Hindu signs inside. In January 2019, BJP leader Anant Kumar Hegde also claimed that Taj Mahal was not built by Shah Jahan but rather bought by him from King Jayasimha.
Such claims have been put to rest not just by historians but also by the Archeological Survey of India which has time and again refuted such revisionist interpretations of Taj Mahal’s history and dismissed claims to ownership.
In February 2018, the ASI filed an affidavit in an Agra court, stating that the Taj Mahal was indeed built as a tomb by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan who intended it to be a tomb and shrine for his Mumtaz Mahal.
