Sunni Waqf Board says not satisfied with Babri Mosque verdict

NEW DELHI: Sunni Waqf Board, a party in Ayodhya land case, has said that it was not satisfied with the verdict of India’s Supreme Court on Babri Mosque and will take a decision on the matter after consultation.

The court on Saturday ruled that the Hindus will get Ayodhya land and an alternate piece of land should be allotted to Muslims to balance the claims of the both communities.

Muslim Personal Law Board commenting on the court judgment said it was not satisfied with the judgment.

Senior Advocate of All India Muslim Personal Law Board, Zafaryab Jeelani said, “Respect the verdict but the judgement is not satisfactory”.

“The court’s decision is miscalculation of historic facts,” the counsel said. They failed to understand our line of thinking“.

“The Mosque is not for sale,” he further said.

After consultations, “We can file a review petition, (in the court),” over the decision, the lawyer said.

The lawyer, earlier in an interview to Turkish news agency said, Muslim side in the legal battle of Babri Mosque case possessed all the evidence under the law that the site belongs to the masjid.

The historic Babri Mosque, widely known as Babri Mosque, was built in 1528 during the reign of the first Mughal emperor Zaheer ud-Din Muhammad Babur in Ayodhya in the central Indian province of Uttar Pradesh (UP) and there was no claim of any Hindu deity having been born at the site, said lawyer Zafaryab Jilani.

“Never were Muslims stopped from offering prayers inside the Babri Masjid as there was no such claim of any idol being at the site where the Masjid was built,” Jilani told Anadolu Agency in a telephone interview from New Delhi.

Jilani, a senior advocate, has been representing the Sunni Central Waqf Board and other Muslim litigants in the Babri Masjid case for the last 45 years since 1975.

The case, fought by All India Muslim Personal Law Board representing Muslims, is that of title suit. “Our plea is that the site has been used as a Masjid since 1528 so the ownership of the site be granted to Waqf [which runs the affairs of the mosque].”

“It was in December 1949 that there were some restrictions put on Muslims,” he said. “It was in this month that idols [of Hindu gods] were found inside the Babri Mosque . So, under Indian law, to defuse any communal tensions, some kind of restrictions were imposed.”

Jilani said restrictions were imposed on Muslims from offering prayers inside the Masjid. “Besides, few Hindu religious men were appointed to offer prayers and take care of idols according to Hindu customs. But Masjid was out of bounds for common people now,” he added.