Babri litigants reject land for mosque in Ayodhya, mull moving Supreme Court

The Muslim parties in the Ram Janambhoomi Babri Masjid Title suits have spurned the allotment of land for a mosque by the Uttar Pradesh government saying that it was too far from Ayodhya.

The Babri litigants said that the Muslims would have to travel 25 kilometres to offer 'namaz' (prayer) and declared that they were mulling to approach the Supreme Court on the issue.

''The government did not do justice with us,'' said Iqbal Ansari, one of the main plaintiffs in the suits.

Another plaintiff, Haji Mehboob, said that the Muslims would never accept the land allotted to them for the mosque. ''The government could have given us land just outside the 14-kosi parikrama (a Hindu ritual during which the devotees make round of the temple town)....the only option now left for us is to approach the supreme court,'' he added.

A Sunni Central Waqf Board office bearer here said that the Board would meet on February 24 to decide on whether to accept the land or not. ''The land is far away from Ayodhya....we wanted land within or near the town,'' the office bearer said.

The UP government allotted five acres of land to the Sunni Board at Dhannipur village, about 25 kilometres from the district headquarters on the national highway connecting Lucknow and Gorakhpur.

The supreme court in its verdict had directed that the Board, which was the main plaintiff in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid Title suits, be given five acre of land in Ayodhya for construction of a mosque.