The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has been asked to conduct excavations at the Qutub Minar complex, according to reports. G Kishan Reddy, the Culture Minister, has disputed the reports.
A senior official from the Culture Ministry said on Monday that the ministry is considering performing an iconography of Hindu and Jain idols discovered in the Qutub Minar complex in Delhi, but that there are no plans to dig the site or halt religious practices. The remarks came just days after Tarun Vijay, Chairperson of the National Monument Authority, wrote to the ASI requesting that two Ganesha idols discovered in the adjoining Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque be removed from the complex “because to their disrespectful positioning.”
According to the official, the ministry is debating whether some of these idols can be labelled and shown.
He further stated that because the mosque was constructed from temple stones, similar idols in various forms can be found everywhere. According to the official, there are currently no plans to reinstate or relocate these idols.
Their presentation, however, is being considered. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has been asked to conduct excavations at the Qutub Minar complex, according to reports. G Kishan Reddy, the Culture Minister, has disputed the reports.
Senior officials said that religious practices are allowed on the premises of ASI-protected sites only if they were “functioning places of worship” at the time it took charge of them.
No religious rituals can be conducted at non-living monuments where there has been no continuity of worship when it became an ASI-protected site, as is the case with the Qutub Minar, they said. The official said that the ASI has not made any plea recently to stop prayers at the site.
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