LUCKNOW: Rushing to welcome the UP Sunni Central Waqf Board’s (UPSCWB) decision against seeking review of the Supreme Court’s Ayodhya verdict, the Shia Central Waqf Board has offered to accept the proposed 5-acre land if its counterpart refuses to accept the plot.At its full Board meeting on November 26, the UPSCWB had passed a resolution saying it would not file a review petition against the Ayodhya order. However, the Board had deferred the decision on acceptance of 5-acre land for mosque construction in Ayodhya as was provided in the apex court order on November 9.
Advocating the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya for all this long, the Shia Waqf Board resolved to ask the government to hand over the five-acre plot to it for setting up a hospital, if the UPSCWB refuses to accept the plot earmarked as an alternative site for the construction of a mosque.“If the Sunni Waqf Board decides against accepting the five acre land, then the Shia Waqf board is ready to take the same to end the dispute,” Board chairperson Waseem Rizvi said.
He added that the Shia Waqf Board would propose to build a hospital on that land for the larger benefit of the society. Five of the seven Board members, including the chairperson, were present in the November 26, meeting in UP capital Lucknow.“Though the Supreme Court dismissed the petition of Shia Waqf Board in the Ayodhya case, we will not file a review petition,” Board chairperson Rizvi was quoted as saying in a press statement.
“The Shia Waqf Board lost a court case in 1946 against which we had filed an appeal in Supreme Court. On judgment day, our appeal was dismissed under the Limitation Act since a span of 71 years had passed since 1946,” Rizvi said.“We will not appeal against it and so there will be no review from our side. The dispute should end here in national interest and the Supreme Court order should be accepted by everyone,” he added.
Land meant for mosque
During its landmark verdict on Nov 9, the Supreme Court noted that the Muslims, represented by the Sunni Central Waqf Board, should be allotted an alternative five acre plot elsewhere in Ayodhya to build a mosque