Over claims of there being a Hindu temple on the location before the iconic monument was built, many media reports suggested that the government has ordered an excavation of Delhi’s Qutub Minar to find out the truth behind the claims.
After the reports of excavation inside the Qutub Minar surfaced, the central government broke its silence on the matter. Union Culture Minister GK Reddy said that no decision regarding the excavation of the monument has been taken by the government yet.
Earlier, many media reports had suggested that the Ministry of Culture had instructed that the iconography of the idols be started and excavation can take place 15 metres from the mosque inside the Qutub Minar complex.
Refuting these rumours, Union Minister Reddy told news agency ANI that no decision regarding the excavation of the complex has been taken by the Centre yet. This comes in the middle of the Gyanvapi Masjid case, and soon after the Taj Mahal row in Uttar Pradesh.
Meanwhile, a Delhi court last month issued the order that two Lord Ganesh idols should not be removed from the Qutub Minar complex till further order. This judgment was passed in reference to a plea claiming that 27 temples were destroyed by Qutubdin Aibak, who had played a part in building the Qutub Minar.
After this, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) spokesperson Vinod Bansal also claimed that Delhi’s iconic monument Qutub Minar was actually “Vishnu Stambh”, and that the monument was built using the remains of the 27 demolished Hindu temples.
This controversy comes soon after the Taj Mahal row, where a petition was filed in a lower court in Uttar Pradesh to open the 22 underground rooms inside the monument with claims that there were Hindu idols and remains of temples inside.
The petition was later rejected by the Allahabad High Court, after which the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) released several photos of the rooms of the Taj Mahal in question, which were clicked during renovation and restoration work.
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