India: Hardline Hindus push Modi to allow temple on disputed Indian site

January 5, 2019 Article

Hindu nationalists linked to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party urged him on Wednesday to push through laws to allow the building of a temple on the ruins of a 16th century mosque, a flashpoint in tensions with minority Muslims.

A long-running dispute over the site in the northern town of Ayodhya has flared back into life in recent months in the build-up to national elections due before May.

The Supreme Court is weighing petitions from both communities on what should be built there and Modi told Reuters partner ANI on Tuesday that the judicial process should take its course.

A day later, Alok Kumar, the international working president of Vishva Hindu Parishad, responded: “The Supreme Court is taking its own sweet time and Hindus can’t wait endlessly to see a temple there.”

“We’ll persuade the government of Prime Minister Modi to issue legislation to start the process of a grand temple in Ayodhya,” he told journalists. He wanted the legislation in place before the government’s term ends, he added.

A Hindu crowd tore down the mosque in 1992, triggering riots that killed about 2,000 people across India, in one of the worst instances of communal violence since the partition of the country in 1947.

Vishva Hindu Parishad, also known as the World Hindu Council, has been spearheading a campaign over the past three decades to build a temple on the site of what Hindus say is the birthplace of Lord Ram, one of their most revered deities.

Over the past few months, the group allied to Modi’s nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has organised rallies of tens of thousands of activists, monks and other supporters, at a time of growing political and cultural tensions.

At the other end of the country from Ayodhya, in the southern state of Kerala, two women defied a centuries-old ban on entering a Hindu temple on Wednesday, sparking protests and calls for a strike by conservative Hindu groups outraged by their visit.

The post India: Hardline Hindus push Modi to allow temple on disputed Indian site appeared first on Faith Matters.

Categories: Ayodhya, Hindu nationalists, Narendra Modi, News, Vishva Hindu Parishad

U.S. targets suspected USS Cole bombing planner in Yemen

January 5, 2019 Article

A U.S. strike targeted a militant in Yemen believed to be one of the planners of a deadly bombing of the Navy destroyer USS Cole in 2000, but the results of the strike were still being assessed, the U.S. military said on Friday.

U.S. Central Command said in a statement that the strike on Jan. 1 in the Marib governorate of Yemen had targeted Jamal al-Badawi, who was indicted by a federal grand jury in 2003 and was wanted for his role in the USS Cole attack. He escaped from prison in Yemen twice, once in 2003 and again in 2006.

There is a $5 million (3.93 million pounds) reward for information leading to his arrest.

On Oct. 12, 2000, two men in a small boat detonated explosives alongside the Navy guided missile destroyer as it was refuelling in Aden, killing 17 sailors, wounding more than three dozen others and blasting a gaping hole in its hull.

The post U.S. targets suspected USS Cole bombing planner in Yemen appeared first on Faith Matters.

Categories: Aden, Jamal Al-Badawi, News, USS Cole, Yemen