India's Supreme Court rules in favor of Hindus over disputed religious site

Narendra Modi.
(Image credit: LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA/AFP via Getty Images)

India's Supreme Court ruled Saturday that a Hindu temple could be built on the site where a mosque was illegally razed by Hindus in 1992 in the town of Ayodhya, ending a decades-long dispute.

Many Hindus believe the site to be where the god Ram was born, and that a Hindu temple once stood on the spot before India's Muslim rulers built a mosque there in the 16th century. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Hindu who in his initial 2014 campaign promised to build the temple, urged for calm Saturday, as did Muslim leaders, The Washington Post reports.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.