Ayodhya Verdict: 77 Arrested In Uttar Pradesh For Posting 'Inflammatory' Content Online

Dozens of people in India have been detained on suspicion of publishing inflammatory social media posts and setting off celebratory firecrackers after the Supreme Court ruled to give the disputed Ayodhya site to Hindus, police said on Sunday.

The Supreme Court of India  granted the site of the demolished Babri Masjid  to the Hindu parties , while ordering that the Muslim litigants be given a 5 acre alternative site to construct a mosque.

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In 1992, a Hindu mob destroyed the 16th-century Babri Mosque on the site, triggering riots in which about 2,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed. No major violence was reported after the ruling over the weekend.

Authorities said they were showing a “zero tolerance approach” towards potentially inflammatory content on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook (FB.O ) and WhatsApp.

About 77 people were arrested as of late Sunday in Uttar Pradesh, state police said on Sunday.

Police have acted upon 8,275 social media posts across the state by either reporting them to the platform or asking users to delete them, the police said in a press note issued late on Sunday.

“Any illegal conduct on the internet will be noticed and acted upon,” PV Rama Sastry, additional director general of police for law and order in Uttar Pradesh’s capital Lucknow, told Reuters earlier on Sunday.

The police also said they had sealed a local office of Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha and detained its national Vice President Ashok Sharma. They did not provide further details.

In another part of the state, at least seven men were arrested for setting off firecrackers or creating disturbances while distributing sweets in celebration.

The Home Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for information on arrests.

The government has deployed thousands of members of paramilitary forces and police in Ayodhya and other sensitive places.

“DISHEARTENED”

The court’s decision paves the way for the construction of a Hindu temple on the site, a proposal long supported by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party.

Hindus believe the site is the birthplace of Lord Ram, a physical incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, and say the site was holy for Hindus long before the Mughals built the Babri mosque there in 1528.

The Supreme Court called the 1992 demolition of the mosque illegal but handed the 2.77 acre (1.1 hectare) plot to a Hindu group.

It directed that another plot in Ayodhya be provided to a Muslim group that had contested the case.

Some scholars and activists saw the judgement as unfair, particularly given that the 1992 razing of the mosque was deemed illegal.

“Why has the 2.77 acres been gifted to the very elements who were party to this?,” Syeda Hameed, the president of the Muslim Women’s Forum, wrote in the Hindustan Times, referring to the mosque’s destruction.

Muslim leaders have called for peace between majority Hindus and Muslims.

Some seemed to have resigned themselves to the decision.

“I am disheartened with the verdict and leaving it to Allah,” said Mohammad Azam Qadri, a community leader in Ayodhya.