At Gyanvapi mosque, puja performed after 31 years: Watch first visuals

The prayers were performed at 3am for the first time in 31 years in the southern cellar of the mosque.

A puja was performed in the 'Vyas Tehkana' or the southern cellar of the Gyanvapi structure in Varanasi on Wednesday night, hours after a court allowed the resumption of a practice set to have been discontinued three decades back.

The southern cellar of the Gyanvapi mosque was opened at around 10.30 pm on Wednesday.(X/ Vishnu Jain)

The prayers were performed at 3am for the first time in 31 years in the southern cellar of the mosque.

On Wednesday, Varanasi District judge AK Vishvesha on Wednesday said Shailendra Kumar Pathak Vyas, who moved the court for permission for prayers, and a Kashi Vishwanath trust-appointed priest-appointed will be allowed to enter the premises.

He granted the Vyas family the right to resume prayers in the southern cellar of the mosque abutting the Kashi Vishwanath Temple for the first time since December 1993.

Temple Trust president Nagendra Pandey told PTI that the southern cellar was opened at around 10.30pm on Wednesday.

"It was necessary to follow the court's orders, so the district administration made all the arrangements with great promptness," Pandey told the news agency.

Meanwhile, the Gyanvapi masjid committee has moved the Allahabad high court challenging the Varanasi district court's order allowing the Hindu side to perform puja in 'Vyas Tehkana' or the southern cellar of the Gyanvapi structure.

Earlier, lawyers representing the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee moved the Supreme Court seeking an urgent hearing. However, the Supreme Court registrar conveyed to them that Chief Justice DY Chandrachud has asked them to approach the high court.

"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.