Faizabad: Uttar Pradesh Shia Waqf Board chairman Waseem Rizvi on Friday suggested that Muslims who are against the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya "must go to Pakistan and Bangladesh".
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the Babri Masjid/Ram Janambhoomi dispute from 8 February. Rizvi offered Friday prayers at the disputed site in Ayodhya and also met the chief priest of the Ram Janambhoomi, Acharya Satyendra Das. On the occasion, he said, "Those who are opposing the Ram Janambhoomi temple in Ayodhya and want to build the Babri Mosque there... People having such fundamentalist mentality should go to Pakistan and Bangladesh. Such Muslims do not have any place in India."
"Those who want to spread Jihad in the name of the mosque must go and join the forces of Abu Bakr Baghdadi, the Islamic State chief in Syria," Rizvi said.
He alleged that fundamentalist Muslim clerics are trying to destroy the country. They must migrate to Pakistan and Afghanistan, he said.
Reacting to Rizvi's remarks, Shia clerics demanded that he be arrested for trying to communalise the atmosphere.
Talking to PTI, president of Shia Ulema Council Maulana Iftekhar Hussain Inquilabi alleged, "Rizvi is a criminal involved in grabbing and illegal selling of Waqf properties."
"He has been charge-sheeted by the CB-CID and to save himself from the claws of the law, he is enacting a big drama," he said.
"During the rule of the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, he was patronised by Mulayam Singh Yadav and then minister Azam Khan. Now, during the BJP government, he wants to be spared," Inquilabi said.
