NEW DELHI, Sept 14 (Reuters) – The first section of the Ram Temple in India’s northern city of Ayodhya will likely be accomplished in December and can open to devotees in January, an official mentioned on Thursday.

The website the place the temple was constructed was bitterly contested for years, with each Hindus and Muslims laying declare to it.

Hindus say the location was the birthplace of Lord Ram, and was holy to them lengthy earlier than Muslim Mughals constructed the Babri mosque there in 1528. A Hindu mob destroyed the mosque in 1992, triggering riots that killed about 2,000 folks throughout India, most of them Muslims.

India’s Supreme Court awarded the location to Hindus in 2019, paving the way in which for the development of a Hindu temple, a plan lengthy supported by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu-nationalist celebration.

Modi has been invited to participate within the prayers on the opening ceremony, Nripendra Misra, Chairman of the Shri Ramjanmabhoomi Temple Construction Committee, instructed reporters.

“The ground floor (of the temple) will be completed in December 2023 and once it is completed and once the lord has moved to the sanctum sanctorum …we have to permit devotees to come and pray,” Misra mentioned.

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