DIG FINDS NO SIGN OF TEMPLE AT INDIAN HOLY SITE
Sharat Pradhan, Reuters, 6/11/03
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/DEL107562.htm
LUCKNOW, India, June 11 (Reuters) - A three-month excavation of a disputed
holy site in northern India has found no evidence of a Hindu temple under
the ruins of a mosque, casting doubt on claims by Hindu hardliners,
archaeologists said on Wednesday.
A source at the Archaeological Survey of India said the government-run
agency had submitted an interim report saying digging so far had "not found
remains of any structure that remotely resembles a temple" at the site in
the town of Ayodhya.
Ayodhya, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, has been a flashpoint of
bloody Hindu-Muslim tensions since a Hindu mob tore down the 16th-century
Babri mosque at the site in 1992.
This triggered nationwide riots in which 3,000 died, the worst religious
clashes since the bloodletting that followed independence in 1947.
The report will be a setback for the ruling Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya
Janata Party, which has seen rivalrly over the site as a potential vote
winner both in state elections later this year and national polls in 2004.
The Archaeological Survey report contradicts a claim by Hindu hardliners
that 16th century Muslim invaders tore down a temple to the Hindu warrior
god Ram to build the mosque at the place they believe he was born thousands
of years ago…
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