Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has offered to act as a mediator in the Ayodhya dispute

LUCKNOW: The UP Shia Central Waqf Board (UPShCWB), rejecting the claims of the UP Sunni Central Waqf Board (UPSCWB) to the Ram temple site in Ayodhya, on Monday unveiled a proposed solution for an out-of-court settlement of the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case: a Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya and a mosque in Lucknow.

Shia board chairman Waseem Rizvi said they were in favour of a grand Ram temple at the disputed site , reiterating that the board was the rightful and only claimant to the land on which the demolished Babri mosque once existed. The Shia Board said the state government may in turn allot one acre of land for a mosque for Shia Muslims in Lucknow’s Husainabad area, "away from the religious territory of the Hindus". An application seeking permission to file the said settlement proposal was submitted by the UPShCWB in the Supreme Court on Saturday.

The move may revive the rift between the two communities which had led to innumerable sectarian clashes in the past.

However, the Sunni leaders and clerics questioned the locus standi of Waseem Rizvi. "The Allahabad high court in its judgment had allotted one-third of the land to the Sunni Waqf Board. If anyone has any doubts over the Sunni Waqf Board’s claim, then they should first challenge the high court order," said senior advocate Zafaryab Jilani , the convener of the All-India Babri Masjid Action Committee (AIBMAC) who has also represented the Sunni Waqf Board before the high court and the Supreme Court on the issue. He also claimed that the Shia community has not approved of the out-of-court settlement proposed by Rizvi.

"What Waseem Rizvi has suggested does not reflect the sentiments of the two communities per se as the top Shia clerics and the Shia Personal Law Board have already distanced themselves from it," said Sunni cleric Maulana Khalid Rasheed Farangi Mahali. He did not rule out the possibility of such moves leading to misunderstanding and eventually taking its toll on the harmony and cordial relations between Shias and Sunnis that had been restored after years of differences.

'2,000 lives already lost owing to the dispute'

At a press conference in Lucknow on Monday, UPShCWB chairman Waseem Rizvi said the board was of the view that the "aastha (faith)" of India's Hindus should take precedence over the "ana (prestige)" of the Muslim community, and that the proposal was in the national interest. He said 2,000 lives had already been lost owing to the dispute and a peaceful resolution, through talks, was essential for communal harmony.

Rizvi was accompanied by Akhil Bhartiya Akhara Parishad chief Mahant Narendra Giri, who said anyone talking of peace was welcome to be a part of the talks, and added, "History will not forgive those not agreeing to proposals such as the one put forth by the UPShCWB."

Earlier, Rizvi claimed that the Sunni Central Waqf Board’s 1944 notification, in which it claimed custody of the Babri Masjid, had been declared invalid by the Supreme Court in 1982. "Since the Sunni Waqf Board’s entire claim on the disputed structure is based on an invalid notification, the body cannot be considered a party to the dispute," Rizvi said. Quoting unspecified historians, he said Mir Baqi, a Shia commander in Mughal ruler Babar’s army, had built the Babri Masjid, and his descendants had been "mutawalli (custodians)" of the mosque till 1945.

Rizvi said the board would give up its claim to the disputed land, where the Babri Mosque anyway no longer exists, so that a grand Ram temple may be built at the site. Rizvi said the UPShCWB has written to the state government to allot 1 acre of "nazul" land in Husainabad, a high-density Shia area. He said the board would thereafter form a committee to ensure adherence to guidelines and provide funds for the construction of the mosque. "The mosque shall be called Masjid-e-Aman (Mosque of Peace) and not named after any Mughal ruler, or even Mir Baqi," he said.

The proposal document released by the UPShCWB on Monday contains pictures of Hindu religious leaders who it claims have endorsed it. These include, apart from mahant Narendra Giri, chief of Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas, mahant Nritya Gopaldas, VHP leader Rameshwar Das, Ayodhya Ramjanmabhoomi Nyas president Ram Vilas Vedanti, Hanumangarhi mahant Dharmdasji Maharaj, and others.



In Video: Majority of Muslims not opposed to Ram Mandir, says Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in Ayodhya