Muslim kar sevak from Jaipur pained over not being invited to Ayodhya

JAIPUR: Gul Mohammed Mansoori was among the few Muslim kar sevaks who had travelled to

Ayodhya

on the fateful day of December 6, 1992. He was slapped with a fatwa (decree) and faced expulsion from Islam for his act. But now, the 80-year-old Mansoori is disappointed at not receiving an

invitation

to attend the pran pratistha of the

Ram temple

in Ayodhya on Jan 22.

A former Jana Sangh leader and former Janata Party MLA from Jaipur's defunct Johari Bazaar seat, Mansoori had to remarry his wife to enter the Islam faith in 1995.
He had gone to Ayodhya from Jaipur with former BJP state spokesperson Kailash Bhatt and Rajya Sabha member Lalit Kishore Chaturvedi.
Mansoori said he feels pained as the Ram Mandir Trust has invited Manganiyar singer Padma Shri Anwar Khan from Rajasthan but ignored him. As the centuries-old controversy surrounding the Ram Janambhoomi is coming to an end, Mansoori hopes lasting peace will prevail between Hindus and Muslims.

"I still stand by my visit to Ayodhya on the historic day of December 6, 1992. The issue that sowed the seeds of division between Hindus and Muslims is over today. I feel sad that I was not invited to the ceremony. I feel I am too old for my party's new-age leaders. Maybe they find it hard to remember a person like me," Mansoori told TOI minutes before he was admitted to a hospital in Jaipur on Saturday for a knee replacement surgery.

Having joined Jana Sangh in 1975, Mansoori was elected MLA on a ticket of Janata Party, which was then part of a coalition parties standing against Congress, in 1977 and worked with Jan Sangh-BJP stalwart Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. He said the incidents immediately after the demolition of Babri Masjid are still clear and vivid in his memory: how the kar sevaks were assaulted, and many were killed in Uttar Pradesh.
"I and my fellow kar sevaks had to hide inside a carriage wagon of a train to reach Jaipur," he recalled. The news of his visit to Ayodhya and the demolition of the Babri mosque spread like wildfire in the Muslim community, and his family started receiving life threats even before he returned to Jaipur.
His eldest son, Yamin, said his family still lives under threats. "I was very young at the time December 1992), but I clearly remember at least two incidents where our house at Pani Peech (Jaipur) was surrounded by zealots who rained stones at it. My mother and my siblings hid inside drums and on the terrace. The pressure was such that the Mansoori Samaj stopped inviting us to any social or religious programmes," said Yamin.
In early 1993, a fatwa was issued by a religious cleric in Kota, declaring the former MLA an apostate and his marriage illegal. Gul Mohammed Mansoori was also banned from visiting any Muslim religious place. "My father had to face the embarrassment of remarrying my mother and follow the wedding rituals to re-enter Islam," said Yamin.
It was former CM Bhairon Singh Shekhawat who came to Mansoori's rescue, pushing his name for the post of vice-president of All India Haj Committee in 1998. Narpat Singh Rajvi, the son-in-law of Shekhawat, told TOI, "My Babosa also contested as a Janata Party candidate as Jana Sangh merged with it to take on Congress. Gul Mohammedji is a loyal party veteran and was close to Shekhawatji."