New Delhi: Day after Nepal Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli claiming that Hindu deity Ram was born in Nepal which had the Indians in splits, now Buddhists too threw their hat in to stop Ram temple construction currently underway at Ayodhya.
Buddhist monks on Tuesday staged a protest and fast at the Ayodhya site claiming the Ram Janmabhoomi premises as a Buddhist site and asked for excavation by the UNESCO.
In a protest outside the Ayodhya district magistrate’s office, Buddhists said that the things found during the levelling of Ram Janmabhoomi land should be in public forum.
It may be recalled that on Tuesday Nepal’s PM Oli had made a controversial remark that lord Ram was born in Nepal and not Ayodhya.
“We still believe we gave Sita to Prince Ram but we gave the prince too, from Ayodhya, not India. Ayodhya is a village a little west (of) Birgunj (a district in Nepal that is around 135 km from capital Kathmandu),” Prime Minister Oli had said.
“We have been oppressed a bit, culturally. Facts have been encroached,” Oli was quoted as saying by Nepali news website Setopati.com.
However, the Buddhists claimed that items that were found during the land levelling at the very site belonged to Buddhist culture. The protesters demanded that the construction work must stop with immediate effect.
“We have sent our memorandums to the President, chief justice of India and also to other government agencies through the Ayodhya administration,” a Azad Baudh Dharm Sena worker was quoted as saying by The Hindu. “If the construction of the Ram temple is not stopped within a month and the premises not assigned to the UNESCO for excavation, then we will again start our movement,” the protestor added.
