M A I N   N E W S

Dispute only on temple's existence
Centre pleads before Liberhan panel

New Delhi, May 12
The Centre today told the Liberhan Commission that the site in Ayodhya is “known and believed by one and all to be the birthplace of Lord Rama’’ and the disputed fact was only about the existence of a temple at the place where the Babri mosque was constructed in 1528.

In his written submission before the commission probing the demolition of the disputed structure in 1992, Central Government counsel Lala Ram Gupta contended that though the commission was not adjudicating on the issue whether the disputed site was the birthplace of Lord Rama but it was admittedly an “undisputed accepted fact and believed by one and all.’’

Quoting revenue records and the negotiations on the dispute compiled in the White Paper of the government on the Ayodhya dispute, Mr Gupta said all parties involved in the negotiations, even the All-India Babri Masjid Action Committee, had accepted that the disputed site was believed to be the birthplace of Lord Rama, but they only differed on the fact that whether a temple existed on the place where Meer Baqi, army commander of Mughal emperor Babar, built the mosque in 1528.

“During negotiations AIBMAC leader Syed Shahabuddin and other Muslim leaders had said if it was proved that earlier a temple existed at the place where the mosque was built or that it was built by demolishing a pre-existing temple, we are ready to give up our claim,’’ he contended.

When Justice M.S. Liberhan asked him categorically whether it was not a fact that only one section believed and claimed it to be the Ramjanam Bhoomi, while the other party (Muslims) countered it, Mr Gupta asserted, “in literal terms it may not be an undisputed fact, but in view of the evidence produced before this commission nobody has disputed this fact. So it was undoubtedly an accepted fact that the disputed site was believed to be the birthplace of Lord Rama.’’

He said earlier idols of Lord Rama were placed on Ram Chabutara built at the disputed site and devotees used to worship there while Muslims prayed in the mosque. But from 1934, Muslims stopped using the mosque for praying. And the idols of Lord Rama were shifted to the Central Dome of the disputed structure on December 19, 1949.

“As a Central Government counsel, I will not say that the idols appeared in the disputed structure due to some divine intervention, but overwhelming evidence suggests that the idols were shifted from Ram Chabutara to the disputed structure in 1949,’’ he said. UNI