India\u00a0 has deployed more than 5,000 troops and police in the northern town of Ayodhya in advance of an expected Supreme Court ruling on Saturday over control of a religious site disputed by Hindus and Muslims.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of people were detained on Friday amid fears of violence.<\/p>\n
Muslims said they prayed at the medieval era Babri Mosque for centuries until idol of Ram deity was surreptitiously placed inside the mosque in 1949.<\/p>\n
Hindus believe that the mosque was built under Mughal ruler Babur after destroying a Hindu temple. They believe that the site of the mosque is the birthplace of one of their most revered deities, Lord Ram.<\/p>\n
In 1992, Hindu mobs demolished the Babri mosque, and constructed a makeshift temple of Lord Ram, a physical incarnation of the god Vishnu, who is believed to have been born at the site.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The decision is due on Saturday at about 10:30 local time (05:00 GMT).<\/p>\n Schools and colleges in the area have been closed and all roads leading to the site have been blocked by police.<\/p>\n Social media platforms were being monitored for inflammatory posts ahead of the verdict, told by provincial police chief Om Prakash Singh.<\/p>\n “We will not tolerate Hindus or Muslims publicly displaying their reaction to the court verdict,” he said.<\/p>\n Government departments say they have also made preparations to deal with any violence.<\/p>\n Prime Minister\u00a0 Narendra Modi,\u00a0 whose Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has campaigned on promises to build a Hindu temple in place of a medieval-era mosque, called for calm.<\/p>\n “Whatever decision the Supreme Court arrives at on Ayodhya, it will not be a victory or defeat of anyone,” Modi tweeted on Friday.<\/p>\n Muslim religious leaders have called for peace and appealed Muslims to respect court judgment in Friday sermons in many parts of the country.<\/p>\n Navaid Hamid, president of the All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat, the top forum for Islamic organisations, said thousands of Muslim religious leaders had pledged to maintain peace and harmony after the court verdict.<\/p>\n “The land can belong to Hindus or Muslims, but there will be no repeat of the 1992 communal violence,” said Hamid.<\/p>\n Ayodhya – considered one of the holiest Hindu sites – is visited by religious pilgrims from all over India throughout the year.<\/p>\n The Supreme Court has to decide on the appeals against a key 2010 verdict by the High Court which ruled that both groups should split the site, with Hindus granted the lion’s share.<\/p>\n The court had ruled that the disputed area of 2.77 acres (1.12 hectares) be divided into three equal parts, with two-thirds going to the Hindu community and one-third to Muslims.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" India\u00a0 has deployed more than 5,000 troops and police in the northern town of Ayodhya in advance of an expected Supreme Court ruling on Saturday over control of a religious site disputed by Hindus and Muslims. Hundreds of people were detained on Friday amid fears of violence. Muslims said they prayed at the medieval era […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":11586,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11583"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11588,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11583\/revisions\/11588"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}