A plaintiff in the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case said on Thursday he would file a review plea in the Supreme Court against its ruling that the entire 2.77 acres of disputed land should be handed over to the deity Ram Lalla, one of the litigants in the title suit.
Haji Mahboob also supported the All India Muslim Personal Law Board’s decision to move a review petition and reject the offer of a five-acre plot somewhere in Ayodhya so that the Sunni Wakf Board could build a mosque.
Mahboob said Muslims in Ayodhya were not in favour of sitting idle, especially when the court had said during its November 9 judgment that members of the community had been offering namaz at the mosque between 1856 and 1949, before a Hindu priest put an idol of the infant Ram and the government locked the gate of the masjid.
“The court has admitted that the idol was put there illegally and the masjid was illegally razed on December 6, 1992. Then there was no reason to hand over our land to the opposite side, which was behind the two illegal activities. We are victims and we have been punished further,” Mahboob, a businessman in Ayodhya, said.
On Sunday, eight of the 10 Muslim parties in the title suit, including Mahboob, had supported the law board’s decision to reject the offer of an alternative plot and file a review plea.
Zufar Ahmed Farooqui, chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Wakf Board, a party to the case, had, however, said there was no need to move a review petition and they would accept the alternative plot. Farooqui is considered close to the BJP.
But at least five of the eight members of the wakf board are expected to reject Farooqui’s plan at a meeting on November 26. Two of them have openly supported the law board.
Iqbal Ansari, another plaintiff in the case, said on Thursday he wouldn’t support a review petition but would demand land within the disputed site, repeating what he has said earlier too.
“We need to understand that we will not get any relief from the Supreme Court. So it would be a waste of time and further vitiate the social atmosphere in the country. But I agree that we shouldn’t accept an alternative land far away from the spot where our ancestors used to offer prayers,” Ansari, a master tailor in Ayodhya, said.
Praveen Togadia, former head of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and leader of the Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad, an outfit he has floated, said the construction of a Ram temple was not possible in the near future.
“The Supreme Court will put a stay on its own order the moment a review petition is filed. Then there is also a provision for a curative petition. This will further drag the issue. The Narendra Modi government would have brought a bill in Parliament if the Centre was honest about a Ram temple in Ayodhya,” Togadia told reporters in Ayodhya on Thursday.
