The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) will strive to reclaim the original sites of Kashi Vishwanath temple and the birth place of Sri Krishna in Mathura within the framework of law and constitution through peaceful means, its working president Alok Kumar said on Saturday.
However, since the matters are in the courts, it would be appropriate if both sides await the court verdict, he said.
Speaking to reporters at the venue of the VHP central governing council meeting being held at Kanchipuram near here, Kumar said the VHP condemned the recent violence unleashed by "religious fanatics" across India and damaging properties, government institutions and attacking police while reacting to the comments made by Nupur Sharma and Naveen Jindal, against whom the police have filed FIRs.
"They issued threats to cut their heads and gouge their eyes and damaged properties of the Hindus and unleashed violence on the streets instigated by the enemy country propaganda and certain anti national groups," the VHP working president claimed. "Vishwa Hindu Parishad condemns such heinous acts and expects the State governments to handle these perpetrators with iron hand and bring justice to the Hindus who were impacted by this fanaticism," he said.
Also, he called upon the Hindu society to stand up for their rights and resist the violence. "India is run by its constitution and not by Sharia Laws. No crowd has right to declare anybody guilty much less to pronounce punishments," he asserted. The VHP would intensify its agitation to liberate the temples from the clutches of the State governments and hand over the administration to the larger Hindu society.
The revenue generated by the temples should be used only for the upkeep of the Hindu temples and for Hindu cause and not for government administrative expense, he said. "It is a matter of regret that Hindu temples are continued to be managed by some State governments. Vishwa Hindu Parishad considers it as a symbol of continued colonisation of the temples since British rule, " Alok Kumar said.
He strongly condemned the continued destruction of deities in the Hindu temples in Tamil Nadu and said that he saw a pattern in the attacks. Alok Kumar, who visited a temple in Tulasapuram village in neighouring Kanchipuram district on Friday, noted that 22 deities inside the temple were vandalised. "Such an act cannot be done by either mentally unstable persons or someone who is inebriated, as claimed by the police.
The destruction has a planned mechanism. The deities were uprooted from the pedestals and damaged and thrown on the streets," he claimed. Alok Kumar urged the Tamil Nadu government to bring the real culprits to book.