Tauqeer Raza bid to give new twist to Gyanvapi row

| | Lucknow
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Tauqeer Raza bid to give new twist to Gyanvapi row

Thursday, 19 May 2022 | PNS | Lucknow

In an apparent bid to give a new twist to the row over the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi, Maulana Tauqeer Raza, the head of Ittehad-e-Millat Council, has claimed that a large number of Hindus converted their places of worship to mosques when they embraced Islam and such mosques “should not be touched”.

Maulana Tauqeer Raza is a prominent leader of the Sunni Barlevi sect of Islam.

“There are many mosques in the country where there were temples before. Those temples were not razed, just converted into mosques when people adopted Islam. Mosques should not be touched, and if anything is done forcefully, Muslims will oppose the government,” Maulana Raza said.

Issuing a threat of violence, Maulana Raza said, “The day Muslim youths become angry, the day I lose control over them, the day these youths take law in their hands, you will have no place to hide.”

Justifying the plunder and violence during the Mughal rule, Maulana Raza said, “The Mughal rulers did not attack the temples.”

Tauqeer Raza is the founder of the political party Ittehad-e-Millat Council in UP

Raza claimed that calling what was found in the Gyanvapi mosque a Shivling was actually making a mockery of Hinduism.

He claimed that Muslims did not need any legal fight as they had seen the judgement in the “Babri Mosque” case.

“This time, we will not appeal in any court. Hate mongers will find a ‘Shivling’ at every mosque in the country with a fountain. If they have their way, they will encroach all of them. I would like to see where these people will stop. Muslims have remained quiet to ensure peace in the country,” he added.

Millat Council’s Tauqeer Raza Khan is known for making incendiary remarks on religious issues and has issued provocative statements in the past. In January this year, while speaking at a public rally in Bareilly, he had said “I see the anger within my Muslim youths and I am afraid that the day this anger bursts out, the day I lose control over them…I want to warn my Hindu brothers that I’m scared that the day my Muslim youths are forced to take the law into their hands, you will not find a place to hide anywhere in India.”

In April this year, while speaking against the demolition of encroachments in Bareilly, Raza had said, “The day Muslims come to the streets, one must understand that they will be uncontrollable. Therefore I warn the government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in particular of consequences if he fails to correct this way of taking action with immediate effect.”

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