Indo-Islamic Centre to come up in Ayodhya

The Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board, the custodian of religious properties of Muslims in India, has decided to accept the five-acre plot to build a mosque in Ayodhya, offered under the Supreme Court order to settle the protracted Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title dispute.

The Board in Lucknow, the state’s capital city, also decided to build an Indo-Islamic Cultural and Educational Centre, a charitable hospital for people of all faiths and a public library on the plot in Ayodhya, a religious destination in the state

The apex body had offered to give a plot of land measuring five acre to the Board to build the mosque, to end one of the longest running disputes between Hindus and Muslims, spanning almost a century.

It was believed that an ancient temple in Ayodhya, 605 km from New Delhi, was destroyed by Mughal emperor Babur who conquered India in 1526. Hindus have a strong sentimental attachment with Ayodhya, which they believe is the birthplace of Lord Ram, a Hindu deity.

The Supreme Court on November 9 last year had ruled in favour of the construction of a Ram temple on the site in Ayodhya where Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992 by Hindu mobs.

After the Supreme Court order, the Uttar Pradesh government under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yogi Adityanath, a monk and Hindu nationalist politician, had announced the allotment of a five-acre plot in Dhannipur village in the Raunahi area of the Faizabad-Lucknow highway, around 20 kilometres from the disputed site. The piece of land is outside 14-kosi area designated as the birthplace of Lord Ram. There was initial reluctance to accept the land as it was not within the original boundaries of Ayodhya.

In its order, the SC had directed that the disputed 2.7 acre of land would be handed over to a trust to build Ram temple.

According to Waqf Board Chairman Zafar Farooqui the idea of building an IndoIslamic Cultural and Educational centre is to display the grand traditions of Indo-Islamic culture. However, the decision to accept the land allocated to build the mosque was not unanimous as only five of the eight members of the Board attended the meeting. The Waqf board earlier had decided not to challenge the Supreme Court’s decision.

After India’s independence in 1947, the

Hindus and Muslims fought a legal battle for the title suit of the disputed land. Matters came to head in 1992 when a political movement was mounted by the BJP to take over the contentious site, resulting in demolition of the mosque. Several attempts were made to find an out of court settlement, but all efforts failed. In 1992, the mosque was demolished, followed by communal riots in many parts of the country.

In 2010, the Allahabad High Court had ordered that the disputed land of 2.7 acre be divided into three parts - one going to Hindu Mahasabha, representing Lord Ram, the other to Sunni Waqf Board and the third to Nirmohi Akhara, Hindu religious denomination, that is also one of the stakeholders. The High Court order was challenged in the Supreme Court which took nine years to decide the case. The Sunni Waqf Board first decided to appeal against the SC verdict but later chose not to oppose it. The Supreme Court verdict was seen as a huge victory for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP government. The prime minister announced in the Parliament that “We have readied a scheme for the development of Ram Temple in Ayodhya. A trust has been formed, it is called ‘Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra.”

The trust, the Lord Ram Birthplace Pilgrim Centre, has 15 members. According to reports, one of India’s biggest construction companies L&T has been roped in to build a grand temple.