‘Hindu Taliban destroyed Babri Masjid’, litigant’s counsel tells SC

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 13

Amid controversy over Congress leader Shashi Tharoor’s statement that “India will become a ‘Hindu Pakistan’ if BJP returned to power in 2019,” a Muslim litigant’s counsel on Friday told the Supreme Court that Babri Masjid was destroyed by ‘Hindu Taliban’.

“Just as the Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddha, the Hindu Taliban destroyed the Babri Masjid,” senior counsel Rajeev Dhavan, representing one of the appellant M Siddiq told a three-judge Special Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra.

Dhavan is trying to convince the Bench that the top court’s ruling in M Ismail Fauruqui case should be referred to a larger Bench. The court had ruled in 1994 that mosque was not integral to Islam as Muslims could offer prayers anywhere.

“It cannot be that once it is destroyed then nothing can be done. Such an argument should not be allowed,” Dhavan told the Bench which also included Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice S Abdul Nazeer. He also accused the UP government of going back on its word that it would remain neutral in the case.

As his arguments remained inconclusive, the Bench posted the matter for further hearing on July 20.

During the hearing, the Shia Central Waqf Board of Uttar Pradesh opposed the demand for referring the matter to a larger Bench.

It claimed the demolished mosque was a Shia Waqf as Mir Baqi who got Babri Mosque constructed was a Shia Muslim. It has supported construction of a Ram Temple at the disputed site where a makeshift temple exits at present in national interest, saying a Masjid could be built in a Muslim area.

Almost eight years after the Allahabad High Court’s September 30, 2010, order dividing the 2.7-acre disputed land at the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site equally between Ram Lalla, Nirmohi Akhara and Sunni Wakf Board, the Supreme Court was expected to take up the cross-appeals filed by various parties.

However, it has first decided to adjudicate on Muslim parties’ demand that the court’s ruling in Fauruqui case should be referred to a larger Bench for reconsideration.

Hindus believe that Lord Ram was born in Ayodhya thousands of years ago. During Mughal Emperor Babar’s rule, a mosque was constructed at the place in 1528 after destroying the temples existing there.

More than 70 years after the Faizabad Civil Court rejected its claim over Babri Masjid as a Shia Wakf, the Shia Central Waqf Board of UP had last year moved the Supreme Court to assert its claim over the disputed site.

Interestingly, the Special Leave Petition – which challenged a 1946 decision of the Faizabad Civil Court – said the Babri Masjid was built by demolishing a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.

The RSS, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and BJP have been running a campaign for construction of a Ram Temple in Ayodhya. On December 6, 1992, kar sevaks of right-wing Hindu organisations demolished the disputed structure. Many BJP leaders, including LK Advani and Murali Manohar Joshi, are facing a criminal case in connection with the demolition.

But the civil dispute over 2.7 acres is a separate one that has been on since 1961 when the Sunni Wakf Board took the matter to court.