Indian police stop Muslim volunteers from entering Hindu temple in Ayodhya

The Muslim group said they came to help construct Ram temple at disputed site

AYODHYA: Indian police have refused to allow a group of people claiming to be Muslim kar sevaks – someone who offers services for free to a religious cause – from entering the shrine of Ramjanmabhoomi in Ayodhya, the Times of India (TOI) reported on Saturday.

The Muslim group said they had come to help construct Ram temple at the disputed site, it added.



Azam Khan was leading the group who hit headlines for releasing posters in Lucknow demanding a Ram temple in Ayodhya.

Around 20-25 people under the banner of ‘Rashtriya Muslim Morcha’ reached Ayodhya on Thursday with a truckload of bricks to donate for the construction of Ram Temple.

"We took them to the police station and asked them to leave Ayodhya,” said a senior Indian police official.

Reportedly, the group had people from areas such as Gorakhpur, Basti, Deoria and Lucknow.

The Indian Supreme Court on April 19th ruled that three senior members of India’s ruling Hindu nationalist party including a government minister should face trial over the demolition of a mosque a quarter of a century ago.

The three, government minister Uma Bharti, former deputy prime minister LK Advani and MM Joshi, are accused of inciting Hindu zealots to pull down the 16^th-century Babri mosque in 1992, igniting one of India’s most explosive religious disputes in which thousands died.



The demolition of the mosque marked the culmination of a virulent campaign led by the now ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Many Hindus believe the Babri mosque was only built after the destruction of a temple that marks the birthplace of their god Ram.

Some in the BJP, which recently won elections in India’s largest state Uttar Pradesh, want to build a Ram temple on the ruins of the razed mosque – an idea that horrifies the state’s significant Muslim minority.