May 30, 2003	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 27,1424

NEW DELHI, May 29: A hardline Hindu group said on Thursday it would never allow a mosque to be built near the site of the demolished Babri Mosque where it wants to construct a temple.

“As long as we are alive, no mosque will be allowed to come up any where near the site,” said Acharya Giriraj Kishore, a leader of Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

He said allowing a mosque near the proposed temple would lead to “communal tensions” as the timings of prayers would clash.

The VHP, considered an ideological ally of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party, was at the forefront of a campaign that led to Hindu zealots demolishing the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya in December 1992, provoking widespread communal riots. They believe the mosque was built by emperor Babur after he demolished a temple which marked the birthplace of their god Ram.

The matter is now in courts that have ordered archaeologists to dig at the site to determine whether a temple existed beneath the mosque.

On Wednesday, BJP chief Venkaiaih Naidu told a rally that his party was willing to allow a mosque to be built alongside a temple at the site in Ayodhya.

Mr Naidu later denied having made the statement, but the VHP angrily snubbed him.

“First statements are made, then they are contradicted. Politicians lose control on seeing crowds to get applause,” Mr Kishore told reporters in New Delhi, adding no mosque could come up anywhere within a 5km radius from the proposed temple. “In any case, there are plenty of mosques lying unused in Ayodhya.”

He said if required Muslims could be given land in one of the villages in Ayodhya district for the construction of a mosque “for which we can even give money.”—AFP