99% Muslims want review of Supreme Court’s Ayodhya verdict, says AIMPLB; petition to be filed by 9 December

Lucknow: The All India Muslim Personal Law Board on Sunday asserted that 99 percent of Muslims in the country want a review of the unanimous Supreme Court verdict on the Ayodhya dispute. [caption id=“attachment_4346681” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of AIMPLB leaders at a meeting. PTI[/caption] The AIMPLB, which was not a party to the law suit, has previously said a review petition will be filed by 9 December. A five-judge bench had ruled on 9 November that a temple should be built through a trust set up by the government on the disputed site, where the mosque was demolished in 1992. “Muslims trust judiciary that is why a review petition is being filed. However, the trust has weakened after the SC verdict on Ayodhya,” AIMPLB General Secretary Maulana Wali Rahmani told PTI. “Ninety-nine per cent of Muslims of the country are in favour of a review petition. If it it understood that a big section is against this, it is wrong,” he said. Rahmani, however, said they “suspect our petition will be dismissed”. “(But) it does not mean we don’t file it. It’s our legal right. There are many contradictory things in the verdict,” he added. Asked about the suggestion that the decades-long dispute should end after the SC judgment, Rahmani said, “They are those who did not have any interest in the mosque. They live in fear and want others to do so. “Intellectuals raise this issue but they did not have any practical scheme to resolve issues of the Muslim community. They should be asked what they have done for the community.” The Sunni Central Waqf Board, one of the main litigants in the case, has decided to not file a review petition, but is yet to take a call on whether to accept a five-acre alternative plot for a mosque.