Shankaracharya Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati on Wednesday urged the Hindu community to be ready to face bullets for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. At a Param Dharam Sansad in Prayagraj city of Uttar Pradesh, the religious leader set February 21 as the final date to proceed to Ayodhya to lay the foundation of the Ram temple, the Hindustan Times reported on Thursday.

Saraswati was presented four bricks named ‘Nanda’, ‘Jaya’, ‘Bhadra’ and ‘Purna’. The shankaracharya said that all Hindus should proceed to Ayodhya carrying four such bricks. “Lord Ram resides there and that’s his birthplace,” he added, according to Reuters.

“We will march to Ayodhya to build the Ram temple,” the religious leader said, according to The Times of India. “If the legislature, judiciary or executive try to act as a hurdle, the Hindu community will take the task in its hand.”

The shankaracharya criticised the Centre for moving the Supreme Court to return surplus land at the disputed site in Ayodhya to the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi has tried to disturb the ongoing judicial process by moving an application for return of undisputed land in Ayodhya,” he claimed.

Swaroopanand Saraswati also said that while it took the government just two days to get a bill allowing upper caste reservations passed in Parliament, it did not do the same for constructing the Ram temple. “In this context, we passed a resolution condemning the act of the central government,” he said.

Swaroopanand added that another Dharam Sansad, held by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, had not said anything about the place and time for construction of the temple. The religious leader said that a massive temple the size of the Angkor Wat in Cambodia should be constructed in Ayodhya, and the city should be granted the same status as that of Vatican City.

Another religious leader, Swami Avimukteshwaranand, claimed that the march to Ayodhya would follow in the footsteps of the civil disobedience movement of Mahatma Gandhi.