All there because the 361 year old mosque is in need of repairs. With the glare always on the Taj Mahal, nobody thought of the Jama Masjid till parts of its external façade and internal structure threatened to fall off.

The five-member ASI team, led by deputy superintendent archaeologist of the ASI’s Delhi division, Rajendra Dehori, took stock of the damage to the monument. The last time the mosque saw repairs was 10 years ago on the orders of the Delhi High Court.

Custodians of the mosque – the family that holds the keys to the Masjid – sounded the alarm more than a year ago. Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the Shahi Imam of the Jama Masjid, brought the “crumbling mosque” to the notice of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Jama Masjid is under threat from water seepage, which has eroded the structural integrity of the main dome and peeled off sandstone and plaster from the walls besides doing damage to the intricate parapet carvings.

Bukhari in his letter to the Prime Minister sought help to repair the structure. He also made representations to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). But the ASI reacted only after media took up the story and that too only this month.

“I told both PMO and ASI that lack of maintenance was resulting in permanent damage. That the main prayer chamber and three domes required instant restoration,” Bukhari said.

An ASI official said that there were repair works in the pipeline but that the ASI was not in the know of the serious damage to the domes and parapets. “The mosque is not an ASI-protected monument,” he said.

He was right, the mosque is not the ASI’s responsibility. That lies with the Delhi Wakf Board but the board doesn’t have the money to carry out major repairs to the mosque. Bukhari said the last major renovation was carried 10 years ago by the ASI following a similar outcry.

In the early 1950s, lightning did serious damage to one of the minarets and then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru asked the ASI to do the repairs.

At present the mosque’s custodians are worried about the central dome of the principal prayer hall; the wall joints and minarets. The smaller onion-shaped domes have also developed cracks.

The 17th-century mosque was known as Masjid-i Jahan Numa but came to become famous as the Jama Masjid. It took six years and Rs 10 lakh in money of that time to build it.
On an average 5,000 tourists and 1,000 worshippers visit the mosque every day.

On Thursday, the ASI said its team has taken stock of the cracks and crumbling walls in the monument and that a “proper” survey team of officials from the director general (north) division will visit the mosque soon.

A four-member team of disaster management department officials of the Delhi government also inspected the mosque. “A report will be prepared based on the inspection and handed over to the district magistrate,” nodal officer Neelofar Nizami said.

She said the mosque sees heavy footfall, especially on Fridays, and it was important that the damage already done to the mosque was not exacerbated before the repairs were carried out.

The two-member Delhi Wakf Board team, which is also one of the custodians of the building, said a report of the damage to the mosque will be prepared as soon as possible. (IPA Service)