New Delhi: The Supreme Court appointed an arbitration panel on Friday to mediate in a decades-long dispute over a controversial plan to build a Hindu temple on the ruins of a 16th-century mosque in Ayodhya.
With a general election looming in coming months, conservative Hindu allies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have ratcheted up their longstanding demand for the construction of a temple.
In 1992, a militant Hindu mob tore down the mosque triggering riots that killed about 2,000 people in one of the worst instances of communal violence in India since the 1947 partition of the country.
While holding control over the controversial site in Uttar Pradesh, the Supreme Court has been weighing petitions from both communities on what should be built there.
On Friday, the court appointed former judge F. M. Kalifulla to head an arbitration panel that includes spiritual guru Ravi Shankar and senior lawyer Sriram Panchu.
The process of mediation should start within a week and the panel should be able to wrap up its work in eight weeks, Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said.
