NEW DELHI, 18 March 2003 — Right-wing Hindu leader Praveen Togadia, a leader of the controversial campaign to build a temple over the ruins of a razed mosque, was arrested yesterday in southern India ahead of a planned rally.
Togadia, general secretary of the militant Vishwa Hindu Parishad or VHP, confirmed his arrest to the Hindi-language news channel Aaj Tak.
“The Hindu community needs to be ready to wage a war to protect Hindu religion,” he said.
The arrest came after police in Andhra Pradesh state’s Anantapur district refused permission to the VHP to hold public meetings in the communally sensitive Rayalaseema region, where Togadia was scheduled to speak.
The permission was denied “in the interest of law and order,” A.V. Naryana, a senior police officer in Anantapur, said. The VHP had scheduled three meetings beginning today at Anantapur.
Togadia is the second leader of the VHP to be taken into custody in as many days.
Late Sunday, Acharya Dharamendra was detained in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, administered by the main opposition Congress party.
But Andhra Pradesh is administered by the regional Telugu Desam Party, which lends crucial support to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s federal coalition of two dozen parties.
Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party is closely allied to the radical VHP, which is spearheading the campaign to construct a temple to the Hindu deity Ram in the northern town of Ayodhya.
Radical Hindus razed the 16th-century Babri Mosque in Ayodhya in December 1992, saying it had been built by Mogul Emperor Babar who tore down a temple dedicated to Ram.
At the disputed site, a mouse-shaped stone and an earthen pot were unearthed yesterday from two different trenches during excavation by a team of government archaeologists.
The team is currently digging in four trenches while excavation in another four (J-1 to J-4) was stopped after workers hit the floor of the demolished mosque.
“The ASI (Archaeological Survey of India) team has videotaped the mouse-shaped stone and the pot before sealing them. On an average, each trench has been dug up by nine to 12 centimeters,’’ said Ranjit Lal Verma, counsel for the Digambar Akhada, one of the claimants to the site.
The ASI has been directed by the Allahabad High Court to submit an interim report on the progress of the excavation job on March 24.
VHP President Ashok Singhal, who reached Ayodhya yesterday, described the excavation as a “slow and time consuming exercise”. He appealed to Muslims to give up their claim to the site and demanded Parliament legislation to facilitate the construction of a temple.
He said there was no love lost between Hindus and Muslims in the country and vowed to work for the end of secularism in the country.
Meanwhile, the Faizabad administration today arrested Magsaysay award-winning activist Sandeep Pandey after he staged a sit-in, demanding that politics be kept out of the Ayodhya imbroglio. — Additional input from Agence France Presse
