Pakistan says Babri Masjid verdict ‘failed to uphold demands of justice’

India’s Supreme Court unable to protect interests of minorities: Foreign Office

Pakistan has expressed “deep concern” over India top court’s decision to clear the way for a Hindu temple to be constructed at the holy site of Babri Masjid, saying that it failed to “uphold the demands of justice”.

India’s Supreme Court ruled that the site in Ayodhya, where Hindu mobs destroyed the 460-year-old mosque in 1992, must be handed over to a trust to oversee the construction of a Hindu temple.

A separate piece of land would be given over to Muslim groups to build a new mosque, the court ruled.

Pakistan’s Foreign Office said that the top court had been “unable to protect the interests of India’s minorities”.

India SC rules to hand over Babri Mosque land to Hindus

“This decision has shredded the veneer of so-called secularism of India by making clear that minorities in India are no longer safe; they have to fear for their beliefs and for their places of worship,” it said in a statement on Saturday. “A process of re-writing history is underway in India in order to recast it in the image of a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ in pursuance of the Hindutva ideology. It is also fast affecting India’s major institutions.”

Pakistan said that the rising tide of extremist ideology in India, based on the belief of Hindu supremacy and exclusion, was a threat to regional peace and stability.

It demanded of the Indian government to ensure the protection of Muslims, their lives, rights and properties and avoid being “yet again a silent spectator of Muslims becoming the victims of Hindu extremists and zealots”.

It also urged the international community, the United Nations and other human rights organisations in particular, to play their role by restraining India from its pursuit of an extremist ideology and ensure equal rights and protection of the minorities in India.