Agra, June 13 (TNS): Extremist Indian group of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) members tried to vandalise the west gate of the Taj Mahal alleging that the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) is blocking the way to a 400-year-old Shiva temple while constructing a closed area for the Taj Mahal, Indian media reported.<\/p>\n
A video footage of the incident shows VHP workers with hammers and iron rods trying to vandalise the western entrance of the Taj Mahal (on Basai Ghat) even as they removed the turnstile gate installed by the ASI. The right-wing activists were also raising slogans against them. However, police said there\u2019s an optional path to the Siddheshwar Mahadev Temple on the Basai Ghat, but the right-wing members weren\u2019t satisfied with the explanation.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, after the ASI lodged a complaint, an FIR was registered on the same day against five members of the VHP and the 20-25 of their unidentified associates for rioting, assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty and under the section 7 of Criminal Law Amendment Act and section of Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn Sunday around 25-30 activists from the VHP came near the western gate of the Taj Mahal and started vandalizing the newly installed turnstile gate for ticket collection for Taj Mahal and Saheli ka Burj. The protesters had hammers and iron rods with them. They removed the gate and threw it some around 50 metres from there. Soon the Taj safety police team reached there and stopped them from vandalising more property,\u201d Taj Safety circle officer (CO) Prabhat Kumar said.<\/p>\n
The FIR was later registered against VHP members Ravi\u00a0 Dubey, Madan Verma, Mohit\u00a0 Sharma, Niranjan Singh Rathore and Gulla and 20-25 other unidentified VHP members. No arrests have been made so far.<\/p>\n
Talking to the Indian Express, VHP Brij Prant Vishesh Sampark Pramukh\u00a0Ravi Dubey\u00a0said they took this step as the ASI is removing all things related to the Hindu culture in and around the UNESCO World Heritage monument.<\/p>\n
\u201cTill around 15 years ago, there used to be satsang at the Saheli ka Burj on the western gate but it was stopped. Dussehra fair was also stopped near Taj Mahal. Earlier people used to celebrate Amla Nawami here inside the Taj Mahal premises near an Amla tree. That tree was also cut down by the ASI. There were so many other things people used to do here, but it all ended around 14-15 years ago during the\u00a0Samajwadi Party\u00a0and\u00a0Bahujan Samaj Party\u00a0rule. We cannot let this happen,\u201d Dubey said.<\/p>\n
He further added that while the ASI is claiming there\u2019s an optional way to the temple, there\u2019s only a narrow path on which people can\u2019t even walk properly. On their future course of action, Dubey said the district administration is in talks with the ASI and they\u2019re hoping that the issue would soon be sorted out.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Agra, June 13 (TNS): Extremist Indian group of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) members tried to vandalise the west gate of the Taj Mahal alleging that the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) is blocking the way to a 400-year-old Shiva temple while constructing a closed area for the Taj Mahal, Indian media reported. A video footage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68761,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68759\/revisions\/68761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}