Bengal ready to end religious arrogance: Guv hints at Babri Masjid-style mosque foundation-laying

Kolkata, Dec 7 (PTI) West Bengal Governor C V Ananda Bose on Sunday asserted that the state was "ready to end religious arrogance", while pointing out at "something witnessed in Murshidabad a day before".

Suspended Trinamool Congress MLA Humayun Kabir on Saturday laid the foundation stone for a mosque modelled on Ayodhya's Babri Masjid in Murshidabad's Rejinagar.

Addressing a Gita recital at Brigade Parade Ground here, he said that the state is also ready to end corruption.

"West Bengal is ready to end religious arrogance," he said, while reciting from various religious texts.

The governor said that he witnessed something happening in Murshidabad on Saturday, without naming anybody or any programme.

Reciting from the Bhagavad Gita, the governor said, "Paritranaya sadhunam vinashaya cha dushkritam dharma-sansthapanarthaya sambhavami yuge yuge", which means "To protect the righteous, to annihilate the wicked, and to reestablish the principles of dharma I appear on this earth, age after age." The 'Panch Lakkho Konthe Gita Path' (Gita chanting by five lakh voices) programme was organised by the Sanatan Sanskriti Sansad, a collective of monks and spiritual leaders drawn from various monasteries and Hindu religious institutions.

Kabir on December 6 laid the foundation stone for a mosque modelled on Ayodhya's Babri Masjid at Rejinagar in Murshidabad district, escalating political temperatures in the state where the assembly elections are due next year.

Political analysts claimed that the event was deliberately timed on December 6, the anniversary of the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition. PTI SUS AMR ACD