New Delhi, September 04: India’s chief Muslim cleric appealed Friday for calm over an expected court ruling on a bitterly disputed religious site that triggered massive Hindu-Muslim riots in India 18 years ago.
The Allahabad High Court in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh is due to rule later this month on the contested ownership of the Babri Mosque site in the temple town of Ayodhya.
In 1992, the 16th-century mosque was razed by Hindu zealots who said it was built on the ruins of a temple marking the birthplace of the Hindu warrior god Ram.
The destruction triggered some of the bloodiest communal violence since the partition of the Indian sub-continent in 1947, leaving around 2,000 people dead.
“Whatever may be the verdict and whatever may be the provocations, I appeal to Muslims not to take the law into their own hands,” said Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the chief imam in New Delhi’s Jama Masjid mosque.
In a Friday sermon to thousands of congregants, Bukhari nevertheless argued that the Muslim claim to the site was indisputable.
“The Babri mosque was there and the court has to acknowledge that fact and so the site rightfully belongs to Muslims,” he said.
“We are also not willing to give an inch to anyone.”
Riot police had been stationed around the New Delhi mosque ahead of Bukhari’s address.
The police in Uttar Pradesh have already begun planning security operations for the court verdict expected after September 15.
The ownership case has been pending in the high court since 1989.
-Agencies