(Karachi) A top American advertising agency has refused to run digital advertisements for the extremist Hindu groups on screens in New York’s Times Square on August 5, a coalition of Muslim groups in the United States stated on Tuesday.

The extremist Hindu groups wanted to display images of their Lord Ram on Times Square billboards on the occasion of stone laying ceremony of a temple in Ayodhya in place of demolished Babri Mosque on Wednesday (tomorrow).

The coalition of Muslim groups 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 has stated that ‘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.

Meanwhile, Dennis Levine of Branded Cities has 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 move by Muslim groups aims 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.

Earlier, 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.