Muslims want PM Modi to lay foundation stone of new Babri Masjid in Ayodhya
Muslims request the prime minister to do the honours while he will be in Ayodhya to attend the ‘Pran Pratishtha’ of Ram Temple on Jan 22
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been invited to attend the ‘Pran Pratishtha’ event at Ayodhya’s Ram Temple on January 22, Muslims have also urged the prime minister to lay the foundation stone of the new Babri Masjid.
“Our prime minister is coming to Ayodhya on an auspicious occasion. We request him to start the work on the mosque also. This is our heartfelt wish,” said Indian Muslim League president Mohammad Ismail Ansari. Nazmul Hasan Ghani, acting state president, Indian Muslim League, requested PM Modi to bring along Imam Ahmed Bukhari of Jama Masjid and Dr Ilyasi, president of the All India Imam Organisation, and lay the foundation stone of the Dhannipur mosque.
Meanwhile, upset at the delay in the mosque’s construction, Muslims have demanded that the trustees of the Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation be changed. While Lord Ram’s idol is to be placed in the temple in January, the foundation stone of the mosque is yet to be laid.
Iqbal Ansari, who was one of the main petitioners in the Babri Masjid-Ram temple dispute, held members of the Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation responsible for the delay in the mosque’s construction. He said if the trustees were right, some work would have progressed by now. “The government should cooperate in the construction of the mosque and the trustees should also be changed,” he said.
Notably, the ground floor work of the three-storey Ram temple has been completed and the temple trust has decided to start the process of the consecration of Ram Lalla on Makar Sankranti, January 14.
In the 2019 landmark Supreme Court ruling in the Ayodhya land dispute, the judgment said that the Ram Mandir would be constructed at the 2.77 acres disputed site and Muslims would be given an alternate 5-acre land in Dhannipur for the construction of Babri Masjid. While ‘Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra’ was formed for the construction of the temple, the ‘Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation’ was formed to oversee the mosque's construction.
