Shia Waqf Board chief meets Sri Sri, favours Ram Temple

LUCKNOW : Chairman of the UP Shia Central Waqf Board Waseem Rizvi met Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravishankar on Tuesday to find an amicable outof-court settlement in the legal case over the Babri-Masjid-Ram Temple dispute in Ayodhya.

“I met Gurudev Sri Sri ji and insisted that the Ram Temple should be built on the Ram Janmbhoomi site itself and that there was no need to construct a mosque there. The mosque should come up in a Muslim-dominated locality, if required, as there are already enough of them to cater to the Muslim population in Ayodhya and Faizabad,” Rizvi told HT after the meeting.

On October 27, some members of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) had also met Sri Sri to discuss the issue.

Rizvi said the AIMPLB has no role to play in the dispute as it was not a party in the on-going case and only the Shia Waqf Board has the claim and right to the land in question.

Rizvi, however, refused to disclose what Sri Sri Ravishankar said to him. Not all Shia clerics, however, support the Board’s stand. Majlis-e-Ulama Hind, an umbrella organisation of Shia clerics, has already disassociated

itself from the Board’s stance. “Only a mosque can be built at the site. The mosque does not belong to any Shia or Sunni; it is the house of God and belongs to Him. The UP government has a dossier

of Waseem’s misdeeds in the Board and is going to order a CBI probe,” said Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawad. He said Rizvi was raising the issue to placate the BJP and save his skin.