UP Shia board meeting today to discuss stance on Ayodhya temple issue

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The board has already filed a 30-page affidavit before the top court, saying that since the mosque was a Shia Waqf property, it alone is entitled to negotiate with other stakeholders to arrive at a settlement.

The Shia Central Waqf Board in Uttar Pradesh has called a meeting to discuss its stance in support of a Ram Temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya and rebuilding the mosque elsewhere on Tuesday, ahead of the hearing in the title dispute case in the Supreme Court.

A bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi will take up the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi title dispute case on January 4, according to the list of cases to be heard by the top court.

The top court had put off hearing the temple case in October, turning down requests for early hearings from the Yogi Adityanath government and others.

The board has already filed a 30-page affidavit before the top court, saying that since the mosque was a Shia Waqf property, it alone is entitled to negotiate with other stakeholders to arrive at a settlement.

“Now that the hearing in the case is scheduled to commence from January 4, I have called a meeting with our lawyers to discuss the way forward on how best we can resolve the issue,” said Waseem Rizvi, the controversial chairman of the Shia Waqf Board.

Rizvi had also drafted a pact for an out-of-court settlement of the dispute, but there were not many takers for the proposal among the litigants.

“Let the temple come up at the disputed site, we are open to building a mosque in a Muslim-dominated area, at a reasonable distance from the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site,” he said.

The board, in its submission, had also suggested that a committee headed by a retired judge should be constituted to help negotiate a peaceful settlement to the dispute.

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court had ruled in favour of partitioning the disputed 2.77-acre land equally among three parties, the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla (infant Lord Ram), represented by the Hindu Mahasabha.

Apart from the main contenders, the Shia board is also one of the parties challenging the Allahabad high court’s verdict of September 2010, laying down the specifics for partitioning of land in the Ayodhya dispute.