LUCKNOW: A debate has been raging over the legitimacy of the proposed mosque at Dhannipur village in Ayodhya just four days after its blueprint was made public. While the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) has yet again opposed the proposal of the mosque being built on the land allocated by the UP government, UPSCWB has rejected its contention saying it had paid heavy stamp duty to the state government towards its processing.
However, AIMPLB has also contended that such a place of worship obtained as a barter would be against the tenets of Islam and Shariat.
As per AIMPLB member and convenor of Babri Masjid Action Committee Zafaryab Jilani, the proposed mosque was in violation of the Waqf Act as according to it, mosques or land of mosques could not be bartered. Jilani claimed that the proposal of mosques was in contravention to Sharia law because the Waqf Act was based on Shariat.
It must be recalled that AIMPLB had asked the UPSCWB not to accept the five-acre land allocated to it by the state government in compliance with SC order as it was against Islam to build a mosque on donated land.
Notably, the issue was also raised at Board’s meeting on October 13, this year wherein members were of the view that the exchange of mosque land was not permissible under the Waqf Act. The board had rejected the proposal to accept land for the mosque at any other place.
There was reportedly a common refrain among AIMPLB members that after losing the title suit, there was no need for alternative land for the mosque. The board had even claimed that UPSCWB was acting under the government’s pressure.
Meanwhile, taking an affront of the AIMPLB’s stand and its criticism, UPSCWB contested the Board’s claim saying the land for the proposed mosque at Dhannipur in Ayodhya was not an exchanged land as the UPSCWB had paid a stamp duty worth Rs 9.24 lakh to the government towards its processing. It also contended that the land was now the property of Waqf Board but not a "Waqf."
Sources close to Zufar Farooqi, the UPSCWB chief and president of Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation (IICF), the trust constituted to build the mosque, said the land in Dhannipur village of Ayodhya was not the bartered one as was claimed by Jilani.
The Dhannipur land was given in ownership of UPSCWB by the SC order and it was not Waqf land, said the UPSCWB sources. They added that the apex court had not accepted Babri Masjid as Waqf, if the apex court had done so, UPSCWB would have won the case.
The IICF chief contended that land given in Dhannipur village was not in lieu of Babri Masjid, it was as restitution by the apex court that the land was given to UPSCWB. He claimed that UPSCWB was not any individual but a statutory body.
Waqf Board could not create any Waqf on its own, only a believer of Islam can create Waqf, the land was given to the Waqf board, and being a legal body it can acquire the property, said UPSCWB sources.