LUCKNOW, 6 December 2003 — Hundreds of paramilitary soldiers were deployed to a troubled town in northern India where Hindu nationalists planned to hold rallies today to mark the day 11 years ago when activists demolished a 16th century mosque.
“We are taking no chances and have tightened security around Ayodhya,” V.K.V. Nair, the director-general of police, told The Associated Press yesterday.
As troops arrived from other parts of northern Uttar Pradesh state, Muslims were preparing to shutter their shops in the town 550 kilometers (340 miles) east of New Delhi. Many residents said they would stay indoors to avoid trouble.
Many Hindus believe the Babri Mosque was built by Muslims on the site of an earlier Hindu temple honoring their deity Ram.
Thousands of Hindu activists razed the mosque on Dec. 6, 1992 with spades, crowbars and bare hands. That triggered a year of Hindu-Muslim violence that killed 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, across India.
The High Court in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh’s capital, has heard legal arguments for decades as to which religious community owns the land, and the question of what should be built on the site continues to raise tensions.
In Ayodhya, the Muslim community decided to close shops today to prevent violence, said Mohammed Yunus Siddiqi, chairman of the Ayodhya-Faizabad Babri Mosque Action Committee, which favors rebuilding of the destroyed mosque at its original site.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which claims credit for demolishing the mosque and is campaigning to build a Hindu temple there, said it will observe Dec. 6 as “Valor Day.”
“Public rallies will be held at the village level and on the outskirts of Ayodhya to galvanize people’s support in the temple movement,” said Sharad Sharma, a spokesman for the VHP.
Residents of Ayodhya have demanded a solution to the dispute. “We are fed up with this drama from Hindu and Muslim organizations. Common people have to bear the brunt,” said V.N. Arora, a local teacher, adding that normal life comes to a halt on Dec. 6 in Ayodhya. Fearing violence, many people stay indoors.
The dispute over the mosque’s demolition triggered an uproar in India’s Parliament yesterday, when Somnath Chatterjee, an opposition communist lawmaker, demanded that Hindu nationalist leaders — accused of inciting crowds to tear down the mosque in 1992 — be brought to justice.
Legal wrangling has delayed for 11 years the trials of Human Resources and Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, former Sports Minister Uma Bharati, and five other Hindu leaders. Joshi, Bharati and Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani were in Ayodhya when tens of thousands of Hindu activists razed the mosque.
Charges against Advani were dropped by a court order earlier this year, but a decision is expected this month on whether criminal cases against Joshi, Bharati and the others will go forward.
