LUCKNOW, INDIA, November 17, 2004: All Hindu temples here were shut after the morning prayers Wednesday to protest the arrest in Tamil Nadu of Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi. In Varanasi, some prominent holy men have threatened to immolate themselves if the seer who has been arrested on murder charges is not released immediately. In the Hindu holy town of Haridwar, some people have launched hunger strikes in support of their demand.
In Ayodhya, some prominent Islamic leaders have joined the protest, surprising residents of the town where Hindu mobs razed the Babri Masjid in 1992. They include Hashim Ansari, the key Muslim litigant in the mosque-temple row, Mohammed Yunus Siddiqui, convenor of Babri Masjid Action Committee, and Najmul Hasan, the state vice president of the Muslim League. “The Shankaracharya had played a very positive and constructive role towards finding an amicable and out of court solution to the dispute,” Siddiqui told IANS. “Each time he visited Ayodhya, the Shankaracharya displayed immense concern about maintaining communal harmony at all costs. It is deplorable that the administration has arrested such a person,” Siddiqui said.
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