Ayodhya: Hindus assert central dome as birthplace

The Muslim parties Friday told the Supreme Court they are not denying Ayodhya is the birthplace of Lord Ram but the dispute over the site could not be settled amicably as the Hindu side asserted that the central dome of the demolished mosque was the exact place where the deity was born. They said that with the demolition of the mosque on December 6, 1992 at the disputed Ram JanmbhoomiBabri masjid site, the foreign perception of India's secularism and tolerance changed.

The Muslim side stated that one of the scholars had said that India is a bed of multiple civilization but now there is danger of the country becoming just a "Hindu civilization". The apex court was told by Muslim bodies in the case that though animosity is being raised against the Muslims, Ayodhya is a land where the Hindus and the Muslims have stayed together for centuries. A five-Judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi was told by senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, appearing for the Muslim parties, that they have no dispute that Ayodhya was the birthplace of Lord Ram but Hindus insisted that the exact place of his birth was under the Central dome of the demolished mosque.

"No one including us are denying Ayodhya as the birth place of Lord Ram. This long standing dispute would have been settled long back, if it was accepted by the other side that he was not born underneath the Central dome. Hindus insisted that he was born under the Central dome of the mosque. Exact site is the core of the dispute," Dhavan said.

He told the bench, also comprising Justices S A Bobde, D Y Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan and S Abdul Nazeer, that there was "obstructionist defacement" of the Mosque even after the court had appointed a receiver after 1949.