Singh appeals for calm after ruling
2010-10-02 16:00
Ayodhya - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has appealed for calm after a court ruled that Muslims and Hindus should share a hotly disputed site that has been the focus of deadly violence in the past.
Hundreds of thousands of police and paramilitary forces have been deployed across the country to prevent a repeat of violence in 1992 when Hindu zealots tore down a 16th century mosque in Ayodhya at a site they also claim as holy.
Around 2 000 people, most of them Muslims, died in the violence that followed.
According to Thursday's ruling, the site in the northern pilgrimage town should be split, with one third going to Muslims and the rest to Hindus, including a spot in the centre where they plan to build a temple to their god Ram.
Several of the claimants in the case immediately said they would appeal to the Supreme Court, leaving the dispute at the mercy of India's glacially slow justice system.
With just days before the Commonwealth Games begin in New Delhi on Sunday, Singh appealed for calm and reminded the country that the judgement would be reviewed.
"The correct conclusion, at this stage, is that the status quo will be maintained until the cases are taken up by the Supreme Court," he said in a statement.
Calls for restraint
Reflecting anxiety about the potential for violence, the government had issued calls for restraint ahead of the verdict and placed advertisements in newspapers urging respect for the rule of law.
The sale of alcohol has been suspended in many areas of the country and some offices and schools shut or opened for only shortened days.
The vast country of 1.2 billion people is home to all of the world's major religions and the Ayodhya case is seen as a test of its political maturity and the ability of its many communities to live in harmony.
Religious groups co-exist for the most part peacefully, forming an essential part of the image of the world's biggest democracy as a fast-modernising multi-racial society capable of coping with its diversity.
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which fanned the Ayodhya issue into a national flashpoint, interpreted the ruling as a victory in its campaign to build a temple to Ram where the mosque once stood.
"The Allahabad High Court verdict is a significant step towards building of a grand temple," top BJP leader and former prime minister LK Advani told reporters after a party meeting.
But many Muslims reacted with dismay.
Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the chief cleric in New Delhi's main Jama Masjid mosque, denounced the judgement, saying the court had ruled "on the basis of blind faith and not by evidence and documentation provided to the judges".
"We are definitely not happy with the ruling," he told AFP. "We are not giving up our claim (to rebuild) the Babri mosque," he said in New Delhi.
'Anger building up'
Asaduddin Owaisi, a Muslim member of parliament, told AFP "there is anger building up among the Muslim community over the verdict but, god willing, it may not translate into street violence".
Ever since the destruction of the mosque 18 years ago the site has been cordoned off with barbed wire and steel fencing and guarded by troops.
Some Hindus in Ayodhya lit lamps and distributed sweets to celebrate, but tens of thousands of police patrolled streets and prevented any public gatherings that could inflame tensions.
In the northwestern town of Amritsar, in Sikh-majority Punjab, some Hindus let off fire crackers.
India has avoided any major outbreak of Hindu-Muslim violence since riots in the western state of Gujarat in 2002.
