Digital billboard of Ram Mandir goes live on New York's Times Square
- Digital advert comes up as Indian PM Modi laid the foundation of Hindu temple at the site of demolished Babri Masjid
(Karachi) A digital billboard with images of Ram Mandir has gone live on New York's Times Square as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation of Hindu temple at the site of demolished Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on Wednesday.
On August 4, a top American advertising agency ‘Branded Cities’, the company which manages digital advertisement board for Nasdaq, an American stock exchange, in Times Square, had agreed not to run Hindutva group’s advertisements.
However, despite refusal the images of Ram Mandir and Hindu Lord Ram were displayed on the digital billboard after some members from the Indian American community paid for the advertisement.
Some members of the Indian American community have paid for a digital billboard display in Times Square celebrating the construction of a Hindu temple on the site of a mosque destroyed by Hindu extremists (including members of the current ruling party) in 1992. https://t.co/5M8UPXsQk5
— Arif Rafiq (@ArifCRafiq) August 5, 2020
Earlier, Dennis Levine of Branded Cities confirmed that it will not run the said advertisements. It stated that Branded Cities and Nasdaq oppose the demolition of Babri Masjid and will never allow any supremacist groups to run their advertisements.
The coalition of Muslim groups in America comprising of Indian Minorities Advocacy Network (ImanNet), Justice for All, Coalition of Americans for Pluralism in India (CAPI), North American Indian Muslim Association (NAIMA), Islamic Circle of North America -Social Justice (ICNASJ) and The International Society for Peace and Justice also stated that the US agency had refused to run the advertisements as it opposed demolition of Babri Masjid.
The move by Muslim groups was aimed to promote the cause of Babri Masjid, which was destroyed by Hindu hard-liners in December 1992. The incident sparked violence claiming lives of 2,000 people, mostly belonging to the Muslim community.
The Indian Supreme Court gave the verdict to build a temple in place of the demolished Babri Mosque. The court also ordered that Muslims be given five acres of land to build a new mosque at another site. However, the judgment was not welcomed by Muslims across the globe.
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