Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Dec 6: Amidst a politically-charged atmosphere, the suspended Trinamool Congress MLA Humayun Kabir laid the foundation stone of a ‘Babri mosque’ at Beldanga in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district on Saturday, the 33rd anniversary of the demolition of the original Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.
Thousands of people gathered at Beldanga where the MLA was joined by imams from various parts of the country. Several people in the crowd were seen carrying bricks to the venue, though the proposed site of the mosque is said to be about a kilometre away from where the event was held.
During the event, Mr Kabir targeted the Trinamool Congress leadership, which had suspended him from the party on Thursday after he gave a call to construct a ‘Babri mosque’ in the State. “They were trying to prevent me from constructing Babri Mosque. Every Muslim in the State will give them a befitting reply for this,” the Bharatpur MLA said. He also added that Muslims had decided to support its construction and that funds won’t be a problem.
Mr Kabir, who had announced that he would launch a party and contest the upcoming Assembly election, urged Muslims to elect MLAs from the community in large numbers. “There are about 90 Assembly seats in the State where 42% to 82% of the electorate are Muslims. All these Assembly seats should elect Muslim MLAs,” he said. Mr Kabir said his party would put up candidates in all the 90 seats across the State.
The foundation stone-laying event evoked strong reactions from the BJP leadership, with State president Samik Bhattacharya saying that Mr Kabir was “acting on a script prepared by Ms Banerjee.” Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, who participated in a ‘Shaurya Yatra (Bravery rally)’ organised by a Hindutva organisation in Kolkata on Saturday, called the foundation stone-laying a “very dangerous precedent.”
To counter the Murshidabad event, the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) organised an event in Kolkata to observe the day as “Sanghati Diwas.” Earlier in the day, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee took to social media and greeted people on the occasion of “harmony day.” “The soil of Bengal is the soil of unity. This soil is Rabindranath’s soil, Nazrul’s soil, Ramakrishna-Vivekananda’s soil — this soil has never bowed its head to division,” Ms Banerjee said. The TMC had been observing Sanghati Diwas on December 6 every year, after karsevaks demolished the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya the same day in 1992.
Speaking at the event, senior Trinamool Congress leader and West Bengal Minister Firhad Hakim attacked the Murshidabad event saying attempts were being made by “traitors” to stoke communal fire in the State but West Bengal had always resisted politics of religious divisions.
Sanatan Sanskriti Sansad, a Hindutva organisation, will organise an event “Lokkho Kanthe Gita Path” (Gita chants by lakhs) in Kolkata on Sunday. The event will be organised on Brigade Parade grounds and several leaders of the West Bengal BJP are likely to participate.
Meanwhile, Ayodhya remained under an extensive security blanket on the 33rd anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid on Saturday, with no organised political or religious mobilisations allowed, a sharp contrast to earlier years when rival groups marked the day with symbolic demonstrations.
Security personnel were on high alert and carried out checking drives across the holy town, especially around the newly constructed Ram temple, railway station, bus stands and major roads, and other sensitive areas in Uttar Pradesh, including Varanasi and Mathura, with mosque-temple disputes, stopping vehicles at multiple checkpoints, verifying IDs and strengthening vigil. “December 6 is always a sensitive date for Ayodhya. This year, we are ensuring no breach of peace or security,” said Superintendent of Police (City) Chakrapani Tripathi.
He said strict directives had been issued prohibiting public gatherings or rallies, while hotels had been asked to maintain detailed visitors’ records. Bomb squads and dog squads also carried out checks at railway station parking areas along with Railway Protection Force (RPF) and Government Railway Police (GRP) personnel, he said.
Unlike previous years, there were no organised political or religious mobilisations. Local activists and residents said it reflected both the administrative curbs imposed after the Supreme Court’s 2019 verdict and the passing away of the once-key leaders from both sides of the dispute. “The government has banned observing ‘Black Day’ or ‘Victory Day’ (Shaurya Diwas) after the final verdict,” said Indu Bhushan Pandey, a social activist in Ayodhya.
The BJP posted messages on its X handles paying tributes to those associated with the Ram Temple movement on “Shaurya Diwas” — observed by Hindu outfits to mark the demolition in 1992. “Jai Shri Ram, On Shaurya Diwas, a hundred salutations to the Sanatanis who, by offering their lives in the Shri Ram Mandir movement, paved the way for the cultural renaissance of the nation,” a post on the official handle of the BJP’s Uttar Pradesh unit said.
Meanwhile, the five-acre plot allotted by the Supreme Court to the Sunni Central Waqf Board for building a mosque remains barren. The Ayodhya Development Authority had rejected the initial plan submitted for the proposed mosque, and no revised map has since been filed. The new mosque project rollout at Dhannipur, around 25 km from the holy city, could begin around April, next year, the head of the trust tasked with the project said.
“If all fits in place, and of course, subject to the Ayodhya Development Authority’s (ADA) approval of the revised layout plan of the mosque that we hope to submit by December-end, a tentative timeline of the mosque project rollout could be around April 2026,” Zufar Faruqi, chairman of the Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation (IICF), which will undertake the construction of the mosque-complex project, said.
However, uncertainties still shroud the original mosque plan, more than five years after the Ayodhya district administration, acting on Supreme Court orders, formally allocated five acres of land for it. Faruqi said the first mosque layout plan was rejected by the ADA, but even before that, the IICF had decided to drop it following objections from the community over its futuristic, modern design and settle for a more conservative, traditional one – one that is near ready. The ADA’s approval is the key first step towards the start of the much-delayed mosque construction.