By Piyush Srivastava
A Hindutva fringe group has called on the people of Uttar Pradesh to march to Bengal’s Murshidabad to protest against the proposed “Babri Masjid” there.
On December 6 last year, suspended Trinamool Congress MLA Humayun Kabir laid the foundation stone for a Babri Masjid-style mosque at Beldanga in Murshidabad, seeking to resurrect the memory of the 16th-century shrine to rewrite his political future ahead of the Assembly polls.
There are reports that Humayun has received over ₹1.30 crore from donors for the mosque’s construction, which is expected to start from February 11.
The Vishwa Hindu Raksha Parishad has put up banners across Lucknow, with slogans such as “Humayun hum aayenge, Babri phir girayenge (Humayun, we will come and demolish Babri again)” and “Is baar hoga Murshidabad mein nayi Babri pe aarpaar (The final fight over the new Babri will take place in Murshidabad this time)” written across them.
Another banner with “Chalo Murshidabad (March to Murshidabad)” emblazoned on it bears the pictures of Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Vishwa Hindu Raksha Parishad chief Gopal Rai.
Humayun had expressed discontent over the delay in the construction of a mosque in Ayodhya following the 2019 Supreme Court verdict that paved the way for the construction of a Ram temple where the Babri Masjid stood before it was razed in 1992.
The Uttar Pradesh government eventually allotted five acres to the Sunni Central Waqf Board at Dhannipur, about 20km from the place where the Babri Masjid had stood. However, nothing has been built there till now.
“We can’t let anybody build any structure in India in the name of the Babri Masjid, which is history now. We’ll march to Murshidabad on February 10 with whatever resources we have and gather there on February 11 to prevent the construction of the Babri Masjid-style shrine,” Rai told reporters on Sunday.
This story was originally published in telegraphindia.com. Read the full story here.