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India's Ruling Hindu Nationalists Slam Muslim Cleric
WASHINGTON & NEW DELHI, March 7 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - India's ruling BJP Party Wednesday slammed a Muslim cleric for comparing the demolition of Buddhist statues by Afghanistan's Taliban with the razing of a Muslim mosque by Hindu zealots eight years ago.
V.K Malhotra, spokesman of the Hindu nationalist BJP Party, described the influential Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid, Syed Ahmed Bukhari's equation of Taliban actions with the demolition of a 16th-century Indian mosque in 1992, as "anti-national."
The BJP said the Imam's statements were a bid to infuriate communal passions in the country.
"This kind of comparison is highly condemnable and anti-national. The inquiry is still on as to who actually demolished the disputed structure at Ayodhya," Malhotra told the Press Trust of India news agency.
"There are more than 3,000 Muslim holy places in India and no one has harbored any evil intention against them," he added.
The radical Bajrang Dal group also said that by equating Taliban actions with the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Bukhari had exposed "the ugly side of Islam."
"The government should arrest him and charge him with anti-national activities," Bajrang Dal National Convenor Surendra Jain said in a statement.
"If he feels that too many crimes are committed on Muslims in India, then he can leave and go to an Islamic state."
In addition, irate Shiv Sena members burned an effigy of the Imam and demanded his arrest, while the Bhartiya Vidyarthi also demonstrated in New Delhi shouting slogans against the Imam and called him a agent of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence.
India's top Muslim cleric had offered Tuesday to intercede over the destruction of Buddhist monuments by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
However, Bukhari added that any effort on his part would be conditional on the Indian government resolving the dispute over right-wing Hindu plans to build a temple on the ruins of the Babri mosque in the northern Indian town of Ayodhya.
On Tuesday, Bukhari said that if the Taliban's destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha's was in retaliation to the martyrdom of Babri Masjid then he supported the Taliban on the move.
Addressing more than 200,000 Muslims gathered for Eid prayers Bukhari said the "Taliban's spokesperson had told the United Nations that his government's actions were a way to get even with the BJP government in India which demolished the Babri mosque on December 6, 1992. I cannot condemn Taliban because they are fighting for our cause."
He also said his offer was tied to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee conceding that the razing of the mosque by Hindu zealots eight years ago was a "shameful act."
Bukhari said if Vajpayee ordered the removal of idols from the site of Babri Masjid then he too will consider negotiating with the Taliban regime to hand over the Buddha statues to India, saying that the BJP-led Vajpayee government has no moral right to criticize the Taliban's actions since his party was directly involved in the demolition of Babri Masjid.
"Vajpayee is speaking against the Taliban when in fact his own party was involved in the demolition of the Babri Masjid. He did not give lectures on communalism like he is doing now. Even the international pressure that is being built upon the Taliban was remarkably absent when our mosque was razed. Why didn't the United Nation react then?" he said.
The razing of the Babri Masjid triggered some of the worst Hindu-Muslim riots in post-independence India.
The other Shahi Imam of Delhi, Mufti Mukarram, who had signed a statement condemning the Taliban action also asked as to where the U.N. was when the Babri Masjid was destroyed by Hindu zealots.
But, Mukhtar Abbas Naqwi, lone Muslim MP of the BJP, called Bukhari's statements "satanic and sign of mental bankruptcy."
Afghanistan's Taliban rulers last week ordered the destruction of several ancient Buddha statues in the central province of Bamiyan, triggering a wave of protests from governments and religious leaders around the world.
The Indian government has condemned the Taliban's edict as a "sacrilege to humanity" and offered to bring the Buddha relics to India for safekeeping.
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