Ayodhya map torn in SC boasts a Patna connect

Senior Advocate Rajeev Dhavan, representing the Muslim parties, tore a map illustrating the place of birth of Lord Ram given to him by All India Hindu Maha Sabha advocate Vikas Singh. Beginning his submissions, Singh said he wished to present a book “Ayodhya Revisited” by Kunal Kishore. However, Dhavan took strong exception to placing on record contents from the book and tore the pages handed to him to lodge his protest.

The controversial map figuring on the final day of 40day hearing on Ayodhya Ram Janambhommi case has a Patna connection. The author of the 760-page book 'Ayodhya Revisited', first published in 2016, Kishore Kunal, is a 1972 batch IPS officer of Gujarat cadre. Kunal (70) took VRS to research and work for the construction Ram temple in Ayodhya.

He researched for 20 years about the temple, inside India and abroad. Kunal during his deputation in Bihar was a senior SP of Patna and was considered a dare-devil officer who controlled crime and even shot a criminal dead at the marriage ceremony of a criminal's sister. He was associated with the CISF before he put in his papers.

Kishore Kunal was appointed officer on special duty in Ayodhya cell of the ministry of home affairs when P V Narsimha Rao was the Prime Minister.

As an OSD, he stayed at Ayodhya for a long period and established rapport with the local Hindu saints. Kunal heads the trust of the famous Mahabir mandir temple near Patna Junction railway station and appointed priests from dalit and mahadalit communities against the established tradition of appointing only brahmins. The temple trust runs the largest cancer hospital of Bihar Mahavir Cancer Sansthan and two other big hospitals, one for heart patients and the other for children. Cancer patients are given free treatment from the donations received at Mahabir temple here.

As a student of history in Patna University, Kunal had studied modern Indian history and later obtained masters and PhD degrees in Sanskirt. He was appointed vice-chancellor of Kameshwar Singh Sanskrit University for five years.

On page 357 of the Ayodhya Revisited book for which foreword was written by former chief justice of India G B Patnaik, a map claiming to be the exact birth place of Ram was published. "It was the natal home of Ram as one enters the front hall through a low semi circular door, the book claimed.

The map, according to Kunal, has been prepared on the basis of the French writer Joseph Tiefenthaler, Hindu scholar Lal Das and Ayodhaya Mahatayama preserved in Bodelian library, Oxford.

The author of the 760page book 'Ayodhya Revisited', first published in 2016, Kishore Kunal, is a 1972 batch IPS officer of Gujarat cadre. Kunal (70) took VRS to research and work for the construction Ram temple in Ayodhya