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Hindus Press For Building Temple On Babri Mosque Ruins
AYODHYA, India, Jan. 21 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Thousands of Hindu activists set off Monday on a 600-kilometer (380-mile) procession to New Delhi to push their demands for the building of a temple on the remains of the Babri mosque razed nine years ago by Hindu zealots.
The procession, organized by the right-wing Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP, World Hindu Council), began in the northern town of Ayodhya, site of the 1992 mosque razing that sparked some of post-independence India's worst Hindu-Muslim violence, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The convoy is scheduled to reach the Indian capital on Saturday, where the organizers will hand a memorandum to Indian Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, demanding the government hand over a large plot of land around the site so that plans to build a Hindu temple on the mosque's ruins can start, AFP added.
Some 2,000 people were killed in communal riots that followed the destruction of the 16th century Babri mosque in Ayodhya in December 1992.
The VHP, which has close links to Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist BJP party, has been spearheading a campaign to construct a temple to the Hindu god Ram on the site, and have set March 12 as the deadline for the federal government to give the green light.
"We have given ample warning to the center and all our decisions were announced a year back," said regional VHP secretary, Ambrish Singh.
Several senior members of Vajpayee's cabinet, including Indian Home Minister, Lal Krishna Advani, have been accused by federal investigators of inciting Hindu fundamentalists to raze the Babri mosque.
Praveen Togadia, the VHP international secretary, said it was time for Vajpayee to prove his nationalism by allowing the temple to be built at the disputed site.
The centerpiece of the procession is an elaborate chariot driven by a man dressed as the Hindu monkey-god Hanuman.
Earlier this week, Gauri Advani, the daughter-in-law of Advani, said in a statement to the Liberhan Commission that her father-in-law conspired with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Vinay Katiyar, the then leader of the militant youth outfit, Bajrang Dal, to demolish the Babri Masjid.
“Finish this off. Is the blot of the Babri Mosque irremovable?”, Gauri alleged that Advani asked Katiyar in a meeting just before leaving for the rath yatra (religious ceremony).
Advani, who led his Hindu ultra nationalist party, BJP, to power on the wave of the cry to build a Ram Temple at the site of the Babri Masjid, and personally oversaw its demolition on December 6, 1992 has been claiming all these years that he is not responsible for the demolition.
In an application filed before the Liberhan Commission, Gauri said that she was present at the meeting when the two leaders allegedly discussed plans for the Babri demolition.
Gauri requested she be made a witness before the commission to bring out the truth about the demolition. She called Advani's statement before the Commission as “nothing but a bundle of lies based upon concocted and false facts.”
Gauri also said in her application that neither Advani nor his family practiced the Hindu religion and that he had given a false "gotra" [clan] when asked for it before the commencement of the rath yatra. She said the family follows the Sikh religion.
She also disclosed that during and after the demolition of the Babri mosque, LK Advani got various silver gifts in the form of Hindu gods and goddesses, swords and bricks from Hindu individuals, associations and temples.
Since Advani and his family members do not follow Hinduism, all these silver items/gifts were melted in Bombay (with the help of Sarla Advani, sister of Kamla Advani who lives in Bombay) to make silver utensils and cutlery items which are now used in the Advani household.
Advani, she said, used to claim at home that he does not believe in Hindu gods and goddesses and that keeping them at home serves no useful purpose.
Advani therefore, decided to melt these gift items to use the silver to make utensils and cutlery items.
The BJP has refused to comment on Gauri’s application and the claims made therein. Senior party leader, JP Mathur, said ‘‘We have not seen it. When we read it, we will talk about it.'
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