Indian Home Minister Amit Shah has announced that the controversial Hindu temple in Ram, to be built on the ruins of a mosque whose destruction was the beginning of one of the worst episodes of violence between Hindus and Muslims in the country’s history, will be completed by January 1, 2024.
The minister made the announcement during a rally in the city of Tripura, in the northeast of the country, before supporters of the Hindu ultranationalist Bharatiya Janata Party of the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, reports the ‘Hindustan Times’.
This is the first time that the Indian authorities have made a statement on the completion date of the temple, built in the northern city of Ayodhya on the rubble of the Babri mosque, destroyed by a mob of Hindu extremists in 1992.
The destruction of the mosque triggered a wave of interfaith violence rarely seen in the country’s history, resulting in the deaths of more than 2,000 people, the most serious episode in the long-running tensions between the country’s Hindu majority and Muslim minority.
The Supreme Court of India granted the Indian state control of the land but gave the Muslims a plot of land to build a new mosque. Another court eventually acquitted all those involved in the destruction of the Muslim holy site, despite the fact that Indian law strictly prohibits the disturbance of such sites.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
