By MD Mesha 

NEW DELHI (TSAT) - The Indian ruling Hindu extremist party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has filed a petition in the court and has sought to open 20 rooms of Taj Mahal to ascertain whether Hindu deities and inscriptions are hidden there, according to local media.

The move aims to make the historical Muslim place controversial like the Babri mosque and demolished it. 

The petition was filed by the BJP media in-charge of Ayodhya district, Dr Rajneesh Singh in the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court, through advocate Rudra Vikram Singh, and requested the court to order the concern ministry to open the 20 rooms that are locked and authorities not allow anyone to enter there, the Hindustan Times reported. 

 “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. It is believed that in these rooms there are idols of Hindu gods and scriptures,” the daily quoted Singh as saying. 

RSS/BJP and its affiliated groups trying to make the historical place controversial for a long time and claiming that Taj Mahal to be Tejo Mahalaya, a Hindu temple.

The move widely criticized by Muslims and Hindus on social media and said Prime Minister Naredra Modi’s party trying to divert public attention from current price hike and law and order situation in the country.

“This is more important that price hikes, unemployment, economical disasters, getting China out of India etc.. Do it - for these are not capable of anything better,” Rajesh Mohan wrote on Twitter.

“it's being done to divert the people's attentions from the failures in these aspects,” Ayushman said. 

Ferooz, a Muslim living in New Delhi, said that Modi is trying to divert the world's attention from the ongoing genocide of Muslims in the country by creating such controversies. 

“Make a temple there. Because only temples can now save us from inflation, recession, lynching, hatred, riots, unemployment, coal crisis, and Muslim genocide,” he said. 

Taj Mahal, the world-renowned monument and white marble mausoleum, which had been built in the 17th-century by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in the city of Agra in memory of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, is a major tourist spot in India.

Mughals ruled the sub-continent, presently India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh for over two centuries.

It is considered the finest example of Mughal architecture, a style that combines elements from Persian, Indian, and Islamic architectural styles. In 1983, the Taj Mahal became a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was cited as "the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world's heritage,” according to Anadolu Agency.

Taj Mahal is also among the new seven wonders of the world, made public by the Swiss-based New7Wonders foundation in 2007.

However, now the Hindu nationalist BJP leaders targeted this historical Muslim place after succeeding to demolish the Babri mosque and had taken its land through the country’s top court to build a Hindu temple there.

In 2019, the Indian Supreme Court handed over the historical site of the early 16th century Babri Mosque to Hindus for the construction of the Ram temple.

The judgment spread anger among the Muslims across India and called the verdict is one-sided and the court neglected the facts. 

The mosque was built in 1528 during the rule of the first Mughal emperor Babur, the grand mosque along with a land of 2.77 acres in India's central province of Uttar Pradesh was demolished by a group of radical Hindus in 1992. Hindus claimed one of their gods, Lord Ram, was born at the site of the mosque.