AIMPLB to meet on Ayodhya order today

›

It is my genuine desire that we should accept the verdict and not go for a review. HAJI MEHBOOB, Litigant

LUCKNOW/BAREILLY: The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) will hold a meeting on Sunday to deliberate on whether or not to seek a review of the Supreme Court’s verdict on the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title suit last week that paved the way for the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. The Supreme Court also directed the Centre to allot an alternative fiveacre land for the construction of a mosque in the town.

“The two important items on AIMPLB’s agenda at tomorrow’s (Sunday) meeting are to take a decision on challenging the Ayodhya verdict and decide whether or not to accept the five-acre alternative land...,” said AIMPLB member Kamal Farooqui.

He added that AIMPLB’s executive body members, legal experts and advocates of Muslim litigants in the Ayodhya case will attend the meeting at Lucknow’s Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulema seminary.

The AIMPLB was not a party to the title suit case. It would need the backing at least one of the eight Muslim litigants to file a review petition.

Iqbal Ansari, whose father, Hashim Ansari, was one of the first and oldest litigants in the case, has decided not to challenge the Ayodhya verdict. “...I will not go for a review of the Supreme Court verdict,” he said.

Ansari said that he got a call from AIMPLB secretary Zafaryab Jilani and he has conveyed his stand to him.

The Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board, too, has made its stand clear that it has accepted the verdict and there was no scope or ground to challenge it.

Another Muslim litigant, Haji Mehboob, has also echoed similar sentiments. “It is my genuine desire that we should accept the verdict and not go for a review,” he said.

Mehboob met Maulana Salman Nadvi, another cleric who was in favour of solving the Ayodhya dispute through talks and is now in favour of accepting the court verdict, in Lucknow on Saturday.

Mohammad Umar, a third Muslim litigant who met Jilani in Lucknow on Saturday, said that he would abide by whatever decision the AIMPLB takes at its meeting in Lucknow on Sunday. “There are some inconsistencies in the verdict and I feel there is a scope for correction. I will go by whatever my seniors in the AIMPLB tell me to do,” he said.

Of the remaining four litigants, Maulana Arshad Rashidi (state chief of Jamiat-e-Ulama Hind), Maulana Hifzur Rehman, Maulana Hisbullah and Misbahuddin, were expected to toe the AIMPLB’s line. They were not immediately available for comments.