The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) asserted on Tuesday that the Babri Masjid will remain a mosque and that the Supreme Court’s verdict allowing the construction of a Ram Temple was “unjust and unfair”. The AIMPLB’s statement comes a day before the foundation laying ceremony of the temple at Ayodhya.
In a press statement, the organisation’s general secretary Maulana Mohammad Wali Rahmani said, “It has always been our position that the Babri Masjid was never built by demolishing any mandir or any Hindu place of worship.”
The statement further read, “The apex court also accepted that the placing of idols on 22 December, 1949, in the masjid was an illegal act. The Supreme Court also accepts in its judgment that the demolition of the Babri Masjid on 6 December, 1992, was an illegal, unconstitutional and criminal act. It is indeed regrettable that after accepting all these facts, the apex court in an extremely unjust verdict handed over the land of the masjid to the people who had placed idols in the mosque in a criminal manner and were party to its criminal demolition.”
Click here for live updates on Ayodhya Ram Temple Bhoomi Pujan
The AIMPLB noted that according to the Islamic Shariah, “at whichever place a masjid is established, it remains a masjid there forever till eternity. Hence the Babri masjid was a masjid before, is a masjid today and shall Inshallah remain a masjid”.
The AIMPLB was among the litigants in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case in the Supreme Court, and had also filed a review petition against the apex court’s verdict. However, the court had in December 2019 dismissed all review petitions related to the case.
The Supreme Court had in November last year paved the way for the construction of a Ram Temple by a Trust at the disputed site in Ayodhya, and directed the Centre to allot an alternative 5-acre plot to the Sunni Waqf Board for building a new mosque at a “prominent” place in the holy town in Uttar Pradesh.
The state government allotted a five-acre land in Dhannipur village in Sohaval Tehsil of Ayodhya.
The foundation laying ceremony of the Ram temple will be held on Wednesday, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is slated to attend the ceremony.
With inputs from PTI