The Supreme Court of India announced its verdict awarding management of the disputed religious site in the northern city of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh to the Hindu side while allocating an alternative plot of land to the Muslims.
After the court verdict, a letter purported to have been written by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Chief Justice of India has been circulated by media in Bangladesh and Pakistan. New Delhi has condemned this “fake and malicious news”.
Earlier the Indian Mission in Dhaka also dismissed the campaign as “…most egregious and wrong on the part of those who are deliberately circulating fake and incorrect information to create misunderstanding about India in the public domain.”
Several Pakistani online media outlets were caught sharing the fake news, in what has widely been perceived as an attempt to deride the Indian Prime Minister and the top judiciary as “communal” and focused on appeasing “Hindu extremists”.
In a series of tweets, Prime Minister Modi had declared that “Be it Ram Bhakti or Rahim Bhakti, it is imperative that we strengthen the spirit of Rastra Bhakti,” meaning devotion to Lord Ram or Allah, it is imperative to strengthen devotion to the nation.
The court case is related to the ownership of the land, with Hindus believing that the site of the mosque is the birthplace of one of their most revered deities, Lord Ram. Muslims, for their part, insist that they have worshipped at the 16th century Babri mosque for centuries until the idol of the Ram deity was covertly placed inside the mosque in 1949.