Sir — This refers to the article, “Shia initiative is laudable” (August 14) by Prafull Goradia. It is most welcome that the Uttar Pradesh Shia Waqf Board, in reverence to lord Ram’s birthplace, has countenanced the building of mosque at a distance from the disputed Babri mosque site at Ayodhya. This should hopefully should settle the festering cause célèbre soon. However, it’s not proper on the board’s part to lay claim to the site when legally they only have a portion of the land and the matter is pending in the apex court.
KK Muhammed, former Regional Director (North) of the Archaeological Survey of India, in his Malayalam autobiography, Njan Enna Bharatheeyan, wrote that there is solid evidence of the existence of a temple under the Babri mosque. He even said none of the English dailies, to which he kept on sending these findings, ever took notice. He lamented that the issue would have settled long ago if the Muslim intelligentsia had not fallen prey to the brain-washing of leftist historians, who kept on arguing to the contrary.