The All India Muslim Personal Law Board has asserted that the Babri Masjid will remain a mosque. The board in a statement on Tuesday said that the Islamic Sharia states that once a mosque is established at any place, it remains a mosque till eternity.
It went on to say that the Supreme Court’s November 2019 verdict allowing the construction of a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya was ‘unjust and unfair’.
“Babri Masjid was and will always be a Masjid. Hagia Sophia is a great example for us. Usurpation of the land by an unjust, oppressive, shameful and majority appeasing judgment can’t change it’s status. No need to be heartbroken. Situations don’t last forever. Its Politics,” it said.
“It has always been our position that the Babri Masjid was never built by demolishing any mandir or any Hindu place of worship,” AIMPLB general secretary Maulana Mohammad Wali Rahmani said.
The statement said that the Supreme Court also accepted that the placing of idols on 22 December, 1949, in the masjid was an illegal act. The 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,” Wali said.
“The Babri masjid was a masjid before, is a masjid today and shall Inshallah remain a masjid,” he added.
The AIMPLB had backed the prime litigants in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case in the court. It had also filed a review petition in the Supreme Court against its November 9, 2019 verdict. However, the court had in December 2019 dismissed all review petitions.
The constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi (now retired) had unanimously in November ruled that the land where Babri masjid once stood belongs to the Hindus. The court’s order paved the way for the construction of a Ram Mandir. The court had directed the Centre to allot an alternative five-acre plot to the Sunni Waqf Board at a prominent place in Ayodhya for building a new mosque. Uttar Pradesh has allotted a five-acre land in Dhannipur village in Sohaval Tehsil of Ayodhya.
The AIMPLB’s statement comes just ahead of the Ram Mandir bhumi pujan. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will perform the bhumi pujan on Wednesday afternoon. The construction of the temple is likely to be completed in the next three years.
