NEW DELHI: Muslim parties staking full claim to the disputed Ayodhya site told the Supreme Court on Friday those who demolished the Babri Masjid could not claim ownership and said the act was the handiwork of “Hindu Taliban”.

In the midst of lingering arguments on whether a five-judge constitution bench should be assigned the task of determining if a mosque was essential for offering namaz (prayer) by Muslims, senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan said, “Bamiyan Buddhist statues were destroyed by Muslim Taliban in Afghanistan and in 1992, Hindu Taliban destroyed the Babri Masjid.” He argued the disputed site never belonged to those staking claim on it for the last 500 years.

Appearing for the central Shia Waqf Board, senior advocate S N Singh told a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices Ashok Bhushan and S Abdul Nazeer that the mosque, since it was built by Babur’s Shia general Mir Baqi, belonged to the Shias. “For the unity, integrity, peace and harmony of this country, the Shias want to donate the share of Muslims in the disputed land for construction of a Ram temple,” Singh said.

Dhavan dismissed the Shia assertion to say, “Shias are indulging in a non-existent act of charity.” He returned to his argument on the mosque demolotion and said, “No faith has a right to destroy a mosque... The fact that a mosque was destroyed does not conclude the argument that mosque is not essential for offering namaz. No faith which destroyed a mosque can lay a claim by taking the expansive ground that since the mosque is demolished, let’s divide the land on which it stood.”

The lawyer swooped on former attorney general K Parasaran’s argument that mosques were not essential for prayer as the pilgrimage destinations of Muslims lay outside India at Mecca and Medina and not at a masjid in India. Terming the argument “invidious”, Dhavan said this could lead to suppression of religious activities of minorities. “There are so many gurdwaras in Delhi. Should some one say the Sikhs have no right to go there... as their pilgrimage is at Golden Temple? ...We cannot adopt such an argument... It will be a gross violation of right to religion...,” Dhavan said.

“From 1526, there was no temple at the Babri Masjid site in Ayodhya. The Hindus trespassed and installed their idol in 1949... And now they are raising the issue of essentiality of mosque for offering namaz after demolishing the mosque,” he added.

