Thu 01 August 2019:
Lucknow: The secret negotiations seeking an out of court settlement for India’s over a century old Babri-Mosque-Ram temple dispute have failed.
“Technically, the talks have failed. All the negotiating Muslims, including litigants and stakeholders, except one or two, wanted a negotiated settlement,” a source who was briefed on the talks told Gulf News on Thursday.
It was not immediate clear what were the sticking points that led to the derailment of the talks. However, this source said: “This is a representative suit of the two parties that includes [in addition to Hindu litigants] Sunni Waq Board and Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind [an organisation of Islamic scholars]. For any negotiated settlement, they all have to agree.”
From the Muslims’ side, among those who attended the final negotiations included Zufar Ahmad Farooqui, Chairman,. Sunni Waqf Board and Maulana Arshad Madani, the president of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind.
The mediation panel will now submit its report to the Supreme Court when a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi will hear the dispute on Friday. It was not immediately clear what the panel will stay in its final report. Also, the sources could not say if the mediation panel will seek more time to continue the negotiations or if it will request the court to start day to day hearings. In 2010, a high court had divided the dispute piece of land into three parts — two for Hindus and one for Muslims. The Supreme Court is hearing a bunch of petitions challenging the high court order.
Another source, a Muslim lawyer, who will attend the hearing in Supreme Court on Friday, told Gulf News: “The talks have not been successful, but I will not call them a failure too. Lets see what happens in the court hearing on Friday.”
The case, known as Babri Masjid-Ram Temple dispute first started during the British rule in 1885 when Hindus sought control of the Mughal era mosque claiming that their revered deity Ram was born at the spot in Ayodhya town. This mosque was demolished by a Hindu mob in 1992.
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