New Delhi, Dec 19 (PTI) The government was on Thursday asked in the Rajya Sabha about the places of worship belonging to the Muslim community which have been surveyed by the Archaeological Survey of India from January 2019 and November 2024, to which it replied that the “ASI abides by the directions of the hon’ble courts in such matters”.
Union Culture Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said this in response to a query from TMC MP Saket Gokhale.
Gokhale asked the details of places of worship belonging to the Muslim community that have been surveyed by the ASI between January 2019 to November 2024 and the number of these places surveyed, according to the ASI, that show “concrete evidence” of an “older place of worship” belonging to another religion buried underneath.
“The Archaeological Survey of India abides by the directions of the hon’ble courts in such matters,” the Union minister said in his response.
In a separate query, the minister was asked whether it is a fact that hundreds of attempts have been made by scholars from different fields to “decode the Indus script”, without much success and “conflicting theories” on the origins of ancient Indian communities.
“The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), an autonomous body under the Ministry of Culture, conducts academic discussions and engages with various scholars to explore the decipherment of scripts, including Indus script. These discussions reveal a diversity of viewpoints amongst experts, highlighting the complexity of the task even though these have efforts have yielded valuable insights,” Shekhawat said in his response.
He was also asked whether the government proposes to launch a scientific study to “investigate the population history of South Asia” using ancient and modern genomics to address the conflicting theories.
“There is no such proposal to launch scientific study to investigate population history of South Asia using genomics to address conflicting theories,” he added. PTI KND AS AS
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