June 23, 2002	Sunday	Rabi-us-Sani 11, 1423

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NEW DELHI, June 22: The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on Saturday asked the Indian government to hand over land near the Babri mosque to build a controversial temple and issued a stern warning to Muslims not to interfere.

The VHP said the government should enact legislation giving them the land, as the group began a two-day meeting in the northern Indian holy town of Hardwar.

VHP leader Ashok Singhal set the tone by warning Muslims that they may have to flee their homes for displacement camps as in Gujarat.

“If they continue to take the country towards partition, they will have to stay in camps across the country,” said Singhal, quoted by the Press Trust of India.

The VHP and other hardliners want to build a temple on the ruins of the 16th-century Babri mosque in Ayodhya, which was demolished by Hindu zealots in Dec 1992.

Hindu groups had set a March 12 deadline for the federal government, which controls the land around the razed mosque, to clear obstacles for the construction of the temple.—AFP