"I have been here for 55 years. I have not felt tension between Hindus and Muslims," he said. "Only in the last few years this idea has come that there are two communities."
The case, brought to a local court by several Hindu priests, says the 1968 agreement was fraudulent.
"This land is very important to us," said Vishnu Jain, the lawyer acting for the petitioners. "I don't believe in any kind of dialogue. There is only one compromise which can happen — that they will be out of this property."
Both sides expect the case to last for years.
The local dispute has been taken up by Adityanath and several other BJP leaders during campaigning.
He told a rally last month that work on constructing a temple in Mathura, along the lines of a similar development in Ayodhya, was "in progress", without giving more detail.
Ayodhya was the scene of communal violence in 1992 and 1993 in which more than 2,000 people died, after a mob demolished the 16th century Babri Masjid mosque that many Hindus claimed was on the birthplace of Lord Rama —another important deity.
A court ruling allowing the construction of a temple on the site of the Babri Masjid was a major campaign issue in the 2019 general election, when the BJP increased its majority.
'The land is ours'
Many Hindu residents of Mathura support plans to reclaim the land from the mosque.
"The land is ours and should be given back," said Bipin Goswami, an 19-year-old with his face daubed saffron with sandalwood paste.
Local authorities mobilized thousands of security personnel in December after fringe Hindu groups announced an attempt to place a statue of Krishna inside the mosque on the anniversary of the Babri Masjid's destruction.
The attempt failed, but at the mosque, ringed with barbed wire and lookout towers since the early 1990s, police now check the ID cards of everyone entering the complex.
Aved Khan, a 30-year-old Muslim who has a food cart in Mathura, said he changed the name of his business from Srinath Dosa to American Dosa Corner after a group of men demanded that he stop using a Hindu name.
"You are Muslim, how can you have this name?" one of the men asked, tearing down the stall's signs, according to a police report of the incident in August.
Rajesh Mani Tripathi, national president of the Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi Mukti Dal — a hardline Hindu group that was also behind the attempt to install the statue — told Reuters he was one of the men involved in the altercation.
"If he was Muslim then he should write his name on the banner and should not cheat people by mentioning a Hindu name," he said.
Muslims in Mathura also complained about Adityanath's decision in September to ban meat within a 3 km radius of the temple.
Source: Voice of America