The grand Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha ceremony in Ayodhya has ruffled the feathers of the Islamist-left liberal cabal and the one person who appears to be shaken the most is The Wire’s senior editor Arfa Khanum Sherwani.
Earlier in the day, OpIndia reported how Arfa Khanum Sherwani, the senior editor of The Wire, speaking at a book launch event organised by India International Center on January 23, highlighted her frustration with the way the people in the society she lives in celebrated Ram Lalla’s homecoming by hoisting saffron flags.
She also vented her hatred at the ruling dispensation for making the Ram Mandir possible and did everything in her power to incite people against Hindus and their beliefs.
Arfa’s anti-Modi propaganda, however, did not end at this. During the same speech, the Muslim ‘journalist’ deftly concocted some blatant lies to bait her audience against the current BJP regime. In yet another attempt to make the Modi-led government appear intolerable and prejudiced towards Muslims in the country, Arfa Khanum Sherwani went on to claim that the BJP government, at both the state and central levels, moved quickly to construct the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, but ignored to lay even a brick at the five acres of land that they anyways provided as a ‘charity’ for the construction of a mosque in Ayodhya in accordance with Supreme Court orders.
राम मंदिर निर्माण को लेकर पत्रकार आरफा खानम शेरवानी ने कहा, उस वक्त के जो अपराधी थे, जिन्होंने मस्जिद तोड़ी, आज वे स्वतंत्रता सेनानी हो गए हैं.@khanumarfa #RamMandir #BabriMasjid
— Journo Mirror (@JournoMirror) January 23, 2024
पूरी वीडियो यहां देखें 👇https://t.co/9bqq0zRcOu pic.twitter.com/HzqzE0V8Np
In her hate-filled speech, Arfa claims, “In the Supreme Court judgement it was clearly stated that when the state and central government build the Ram Mandir, they must also build a mosque on the 5 acres alternate land provided to the party contesting for Babri Masjid.”
In her effort to poison the minds of her viewers against the ruling dispensation, Arfa goes on to lie that the Muslims were given this small piece of land as a charity by the ruling dispensation, which mobilised all its effort and money to build the Ram Mandir but did not even bother to place a brick for the construction of the mosque. And what is most alarming is that Arfa cites the Supreme Court judgement to propagate her lies.
First things first: The senior editor of The Wire needs to be informed that government funds were not used to build the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. The Centre announced the creation of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust in February 2020, tasked with constructing and managing the temple in Ayodhya. Since its establishment, the trust has collected donations which in turn has been utilised to construct the Ram Mandir.
Secondly, the Supreme Court of India in a historic judgment granted the then contentious piece of 2.77 acres of land to Hindus for building a Ram Temple while offering a 5-acre land to Muslim plaintiffs to build a mosque at an alternative site. The Supreme Court, in its judgment in the Ram Janmabhoomi case, clearly stated that 5 acres of alternative land in Ayodhya should be provided to the Sunni Waqf Board by the Central government out of the acquired land or by the Uttar Pradesh Government at an alternate site in Ayodhya itself.
Nowhere did the order state that the central or the state government would construct the Mosque on this alternate land. The Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust and the Sunni Waqf Board were responsible for the construction of the Ram Mandir and the mosque on the 5 acres of alternate land respectively.
Page 923 of the Supreme Court’s 1045 pages judgement clearly states, “Having weighed the nature of the relief which should be granted to the Muslims, we direct that land admeasuring 5 acres be allotted to the Sunni Central Waqf Board either by the Central Government out of the acquired land or by the Government of Uttar Pradesh within the city of Ayodhya. This exercise, and the consequent handing over of the land to the Sunni Central Waqf Board, shall be conducted simultaneously with the handing over of the disputed site comprising of the inner and outer courtyards as a consequence of the decree in Suit 5. Suit 4 shall stand decreed in the above terms.”
It also stated that both parties should form committees which would look into the construction of the Ram Mandir as well as the mosque.
The construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya began in August 2020, almost a year after the Supreme Court delivered its verdict in the Ram Janmabhoomi case and allotted 5 acres of separate land to the party contesting for Babri Masjid. The Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation (IICF), was set up for the construction of the mosque.
Following the SC verdict, the central government had asked the UP government to allot five acres of land to the Sunni Waqf Board. The allotment was made after the UP cabinet’s meeting on February 5. As per the allotment letter, the Board has been allocated a plot at Dhannipur village in Ayodhya’s Sohawal area, on the Ayodhya-Lucknow highway about 20 km from the district headquarters.
After this, months of drama followed, with the Board showing reluctance in accepting the court offer after suggestions poured in from several quarters asking it to reject the offer made by the apex court. AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi too had requested the Board to reject the offer, saying that they were fighting for their rights and they don’t need any land in charity.
However, months after being in the limbo of indecision, the Sunni Waqf Board has “graciously” accepted the 5-acre land offered by the court. Stating that the rejection of 5-acre-land as “out of option”, the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board said it would build a mosque as well as an Indo-Islamic research centre, a hospital and a library on the five-acre plot allotted to it.
So, the question here is when the UP Sunni Central Waqf Board accepted the 5 acres of land in February 2020, and agreed to build the mosque, how is it the central government or the state government’s fault if the Sunni Waqf Board has not yet started constructing the mosque and the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust has completed the construction of the temple’s ground floor and the first and second floors are expected to be finished by December 2024.
