Swami’s tolerance lesson for Muslims

Reitertsting his Government’s stand on the Ayodhya issue, Union Minister of State for Home Swami Chinmayanand today said the Centre is ...

Reitertsting his Government’s stand on the Ayodhya issue, Union Minister of State for Home Swami Chinmayanand today said the Centre is ready to arrange negotiations between the Hindus and Muslims to find an amicable solution.

‘‘The solution can be found through talks. I hope the issue will be resolved within a year,’’ he told reporters after attending Krishna Jayanthi celebrations organised by the VHP. Evading a straight answer to whether he still held the view that Babri Masjid was nothing but a ‘‘barbarous structure’’ as he was quoted, Chinmayanand said the Muslim community should honour the faith of the Hindus and allow the construction of Ram temple since ASI findings had proved the existence of a temple at the disputed site.

He said the claims of the Hindus had been proven right by ASI findings. ‘‘If both the communities honour each other’s faiths, the vexed Ayodhya dispute can be solved amicably.’’ Talking about the current situation in Ayodhya, Chinmayanand, who was asked by PM A.B. Vajpayee and Deputy PM L.K. Advani to handle the issue by coordinating with VHP workers and the Mulayam Singh government, said: ‘‘All events went off peacefully and there was no trouble.’’

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He said Ram bhakts from all over the country thronged Ayodhya, wanting to take a sankalp for temple construction. Earlier, the Minister said he was glad the VHP’s sammelan at Ayodhya did not witness any untoward incident like firing. ‘‘Though UP CM Mulayam Singh said he would not allow even a sparrow to enter Ayodhya, scores of Ram bhakts thronged it,’’ he claimed.

Union MoS for Communications and IT S.S. Thirunavukkarasar, applauded the VHP for propagating Hinduism over the last 25 years. ‘‘The aggressors could only capture a few borders and was never able to defeat the Hinduism,’’ he said.

‘Kite-flying’ doesn’t work; Board to move SC

ENS & AGENCIES
PATNA, NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 19

THE Centre may be back to talking the Ayodhya talk now that the VHP Sankalp Sabha is out of the way, but the other key party in the dispute — the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) — is in no mood to respond.

The AIMPLB today said that if Parliament comes up with a legislation for temple construction at the disputed site in Ayodhya, it would move the Supreme Court challenging it.

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The Board demanded reconstruction of a mosque at the site where the Babri Masjid was demolished on December 6, 1992. ‘‘We want restoration of the masjid at the very site where it existed before it was pulled down 11 years ago,’’ AIMPLB general secretary Maulana Syed Nizamuddin and other leaders told a press conference here while responding to BJP general secretary Pramod Mahajan’s assertion that a masjid would not be allowed to be built at the site.

In New Delhi, the Board also brushed aside Minister of State for Home Swami Chinmayanand’s statement today that the Centre is ready to make efforts to hold talks between Hindu and Muslim leaders for an amicable settlement of the dispute within a year.

Calling it ‘‘another around of kite-flying’’, senior AIMPLB member Kamal Farooqui said: ‘‘The ASI report cannot be the basis of any negotiations. That’s because it is found to be contradictory, and also, because it is a sub-judice matter. We have already filed a petition against it.’’

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