Court dismisses plea on Mahabharat-era 'Lakshagriha' after 50-yrs

A court in Baghpat on Monday dismissed a decades-old plea filed by a Muslim side over a site that Hindu devotees say is the Mahabharat-era 'Lakshagriha' but the petitioners maintain is a graveyard and dargah of Sufi saint Sheikh Badruddin.

According to Ranveer Singh Tomar, the advocate for the respondents in the petition, Civil Judge Junior Division of the District and Session Court of Baghpat Shivam Dwivedi dismissed the petition, saying there was neither a graveyard nor a dargah at the site in Barnawa.

Advocate Shahid Khan, representing the case on behalf of the plaintiff, said they would move the higher court and present their case.

Tomar said that the Muslim side intended to capture 100 bighas of land of the Lakshagriha by labelling it a graveyard and a dargah.

"We presented all the evidence of Lakshagriha in the court based on which the court rejected the petition of the Muslim side," he said.

Tomar also said that Mukeem Khan, a resident of Barnawa, had in 1970 filed the petition in a court in Meerut in the capacity of an office bearer of the Waqf Board and made Brahmachari Krishnadutt Maharaj, the founder of the Lakshagriha Gurukul, as a respondent.

After Meerut, this case was going on in the court in Baghpat.

Both the original litigants, Mukeem Khan and Krishnadutt Maharaj, are dead.