Mosque Breakers on Babri domes

By IOL South Asia Correspondent

NEW DELHI, February 10 (IslamOnline) - The legal committee of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, in its emergency meeting on Sunday, February 9, vehemently opposed the BJP-led central government’s move to get the Supreme Court stay on religious activity at the ‘undisputed land’ vacated.

“The Supreme Court had explicitly given its verdict in 1994 in the Ismail Farooqi case that the 67 acres of the acquired land shall remain in the government’s possession till the final decision in the pending title suit before the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court,” Syed Qasim Rasool Ilyas, Board's spokesman told IslamOnline in Delhi.

The Board, an umbrella organization of leading Muslim organizations in India for the protection of Muslim personal laws, also reiterated its earlier stand that the court case should be expedited in order to diffuse the prevailing tension and uncertainty over the issue.

Courts have been on and off looking into the Babri cases for the last half a century. At present all cases have been bundled into one case which is being tried by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court.

The Board’s meeting was attended by five out of its 12 members and two special invitees, with Maulana Syed Nizamuddin, general secretary of the Board, as its chairman.

Indian Muslims made the Board solely responsible for all deliberations on the Babri issue on behalf of the community in the wake of the demolition of the mosque in 1992.

Syed Shahabuddin, president All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat, averred that the ground situation in Ayodhya had not changed as claimed by the government in its plea to the Supreme Court.

In a severe attack on Vajpayee government for moving the Supreme Court on Ayodhya issue, the Congress spokesman S Jaipal Reddy on Friday, February 7, had charged it with perpetrating another fraud and said it was part of BJP’s cynical and exploitative process to fulfill their agenda.

Meanwhile, former prime minister HD Deve Gowda has also flayed BJP-led government’s action of moving the Supreme Court.

He charged that the BJP was stoking the feelings of people on the ‘Ram temple’ issue in utter disregard of the NDA agenda.

He asserted the BJP should either adhere to the NDA agenda till its term ended or seek a fresh mandate, according to the official Indian News agency, PTI.

However, union law minister Arun Jaitley has said that the hue and cry against the Center’s move was by people who are known for their Hindu and temple bashing.

President of Ramjanmabhoomi Nyas Mahant Ramchandra Paramhans Das on Friday, according to UNI, an Indian news agency, said that the Nyas was committed to build a grand Ram temple at Ayodhya within the next 18 months. He also demanded the ‘undisputed land’ to be handed over to the Nyas at the earliest.

The VHP, in the meantime, is all set to get on with its proposed dharma sansad from February 22.

VHP leader Ashok Singhal has said that the "Dharma sansad" (religious parliament), to be held in Delhi during February 22-23, would take a final decision on the ultimatum given to the government on the construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya at the Babri site.