Twenty-eight years after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, a special Central Bureau of Investigation court on Wednesday acquit...
Twenty-eight years after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, a special Central Bureau of Investigation court on Wednesday acquitted all 32 people accused in the case and ruled out any criminal conspiracy due to lack of conclusive evidence against them. Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Lal Krishna Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti were among those accused of criminal conspiracy and other charges.
The court in its verdict said the demolition of the 16-century mosque on December 6, 1992, was a spontaneous act and not pre-planned, and people who demolished the mosque were the “anti-national elements”. It said that members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, an affiliate of the right-wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and politicians from the Bharatiya Janata Party were only trying to protect the structure.
Senior BJP leaders, including Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath and Advani, who was at the forefront of the party’s temple campaign in the 1990s, hailed the verdict, saying it “vindicated” the party’s long-held commitment towards the construction of a Ram Temple in Ayodhya.
In November, the Supreme Court had ruled that the disputed land in Ayodhya would be handed over to a government-run trust for the construction of a Ram temple. The top court had...
