On Thursday, a Varanasi court issued a ban on media coverage of the controversial Gyanvapi mosque's ongoing scientific assessment by the Archaeological Assessment of India (ASI).
The ASI employees involved in the survey activity were also given a directive by district judge A K Vishwesh not to discuss the study with the media and to keep the results private.
The Mosque Committee argued in court that the media had been making dramatic assertions about the survey's results, and the court agreed, issuing the injunction.
In the past, Muslim survey participants had threatened to "disassociate" themselves from the study if measures weren't taken to investigate "rumours" that idol remnants had been discovered within the mosque.
Mumtaz Ahmed, an attorney for the Muslim petitioners, said that certain media outlets had been "spreading rumours" that "idols, a trident, and a pitcher" had been discovered in the mosque's cellar during the ASI assessment. Ahmed had stated, "We will disassociate ourselves from the survey if these rumours are not investigated."
After the Allahabad High Court denied the Muslim petitioners' request for a stay of the Varanasi court's decision requiring an archaeological survey by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), the scientific examination of the Mosque premises resumed in Varanasi last week. The locations had been a source of dispute between the two groups for a number of years, but after the Supreme Court's favourable ruling in the Ayodhya Ram Temple case, there was a new push by the saffron organisations to "take back" the Kashi Vishwanath Temple locations.
The Hindu petitioners claimed that in the 17th century, the Mughal ruler Aurangzeb had destroyed a portion of the temple. The Muslim side argued that the mosque had been there before to Aurangzeb's rule and that it had also been noted in land documents.
