Days after the Supreme Court, in a landmark decision, handed over the Ram Janmabhoomi site in Ayodhya to the Hindu parties and asked the centre to allot 5 acres of alternate land at a prominent location in Ayodhya to the Sunni Waqf Board for the re-construction of a mosque, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad on Monday said that they would request the Centre not to allow the new mosque to be named Babri Masjid after Babur.
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Terming the founder and first Emperor of the Mughal dynasty as an aggressor and foreigner on Indian soil, the VHP spokesperson Sharad Sharma, who looks after the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas Karyashala, where engraved stones for the Ram temple have been kept, said: “Babar was an aakranta (attacker) from a foreign country. We will approach the government to not allow this. There are a lot of good Muslims in India. Their contributions to India’s peace and development are huge..such as Vir Abdul Hamid, Ashfaqullah Khan and former President APJ Abdul Kalam. The new mosque should be named after any of them.
The VHP functionary also said that they demand that Union Minister Amit Shah be a part of the trust which will decide on the planning and construction of the Ram temple.
The Supreme Court has ordered the Central government to formulate a scheme within three months from the verdict for setting up of Trust to build the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. The apex court also ordered the union government to provide 5 acres of land at an alternative site at a prominent location in Ayodhya to the Sunni Waqf Board to rebuild the Babri Masjid which was demolished in 1992.
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However, one of the Muslim petitioners said that that name of the mosque was not important. The primary issue was of consensus on whether or not to accept the land for the mosque.
While most of the citizens had welcomed the Supreme Court verdict in the long-pending dispute, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi had sulked after the decision ‘rejecting’ the 5 acres of land offered by the apex court saying, “We were fighting for our right, we don’t need 5 acres of land as a donation, we should reject this offer”.
Owaisi had admitted that he was hurt by the judgment of the Supreme Court as he had asserted that the latest verdict will throw open a can of worms as it will serve to bolster the morale of Sangh Parivar, who will now lay claim to other ‘Muslim’ sites where mosques are standing.