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Ayodhya seers condemn VHP's threat
to defy courts

Several prominent Hindu seers of Ayodhya have condemned the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's threat to defy the judicial process and ignore the court verdict in the long pending Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute, which is in the final stages before a special bench of the Allahabad high court.

A resolution to this effect was adopted at a meeting of dozens of saffron-clad sadhus convened at the Ayodhya residence of Mahant Gyan Das, chief priest of Hanuman Garhi, the oldest temple in the town, on Tuesday.

Significantly, some prominent local Muslim leaders also attended the meeting.

The suddenness with which the meeting was convened suggests a connection with former Bajrang Dal leader Vinay Katiyar's appointment as head of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh and may have been aimed at pre-empting a joint Katiyar-VHP move to give a fillip to the temple movement.

Presiding over the meeting, Jagadguru Ramanandacharya Haryacharya said, "By asserting that it will not abide by the court order, the VHP is not only professing defiance of the law of the land, but also displaying contempt for the Constitution."

Speakers at the meeting sought to bracket the VHP with the banned Students' Islamic Movement of India. "Disrespect of the law and the Constitution gives rise to religious terrorism and we will oppose it tooth and nail," the resolution said.

Mahant Gyan Das went a step further and called for a "total boycott of the VHP". He wondered how the VHP could talk about defying the courts when everything that had been done so far at the disputed site was in accordance with the judicial process, be it the opening of the locked gates, offer of puja or maintenance of the status quo of the makeshift temple erected on December 6, 1992.

Another prominent saint, Mahant Jagannath Das, head of the Nirmohi Akhara, said, "The VHP must not forget that the key parties before the court are none other than our Nirmohi Akhara and the Sunni Central Waqf Board, so they have no business to make any comment on the judicial process."

Among the well-known Muslim leaders who attended the meeting were Mohammed Hashim, the oldest Muslim claimant to the site, Babri Masjid Action Committee convenor Mohammed Yunus and Helal Committee secretary Mohammad Khaliq.

While joining the band of anti-VHP Hindu seers, they even suggested forming an all-religion council to thwart the Sangh Parivar outfit's proposed "unconstitutional and unlawful" designs.

The Ayodhya Issue: Complete Coverage

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