News Analysis India

Tag: Babri mosque demolition

  • Babri demolition: Allahabad HC to hear petition challenging acquittal of accused people

    By PTI

    LUCKNOW: The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court is set to hear on Monday a revision petition filed against the acquittals of all the 32 accused, including former deputy prime minister L K Advani and senior BJP leader Uma Bharti, in the Babri mosque demolition case.

    The matter was earlier fixed for July 11, but the lawyers for the revisionists sought an adjournment.

    The bench agreed and listed it for Monday with a caution that it would not adjourn the hearing again.

    The bench headed by Justice Dinesh Kumar Singh will hear the petition by two Ayodhya residents – Haji Mahmood Ahmad and Syed Akhlaq Ahmad.

    The two men have alleged that they were witnesses in the trial against the accused and that they were also the victims of the violence.

    The Babri mosque was demolished by karsevaks on December 6, 1992.

    After a long legal battle, the special CBI court on September 30, 2020, pronounced the judgment in the criminal trial and acquitted all the accused, also including the then Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh and senior BJP leaders MM Joshi, Vinay Katiyar, Sadhvi Ritambhara and Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.

    The trial judge had refused to believe newspaper cuttings and video clips as evidence as the originals of the same were not produced, while the entire edifice of the case rested on these pieces of documentary evidence.

    The trial judge also held that the CBI could not produce any evidence that the accused had a meeting with karsevaks in this connection.

    Assailing the findings of the trial court, the revisionists pleaded that the trial court committed an error by not convicting the accused having ample evidence on record.

    “The trial judge did not appreciate the evidence of conspiracy in the right perspective,” they alleged in the petition.

    LUCKNOW: The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court is set to hear on Monday a revision petition filed against the acquittals of all the 32 accused, including former deputy prime minister L K Advani and senior BJP leader Uma Bharti, in the Babri mosque demolition case.

    The matter was earlier fixed for July 11, but the lawyers for the revisionists sought an adjournment.

    The bench agreed and listed it for Monday with a caution that it would not adjourn the hearing again.

    The bench headed by Justice Dinesh Kumar Singh will hear the petition by two Ayodhya residents – Haji Mahmood Ahmad and Syed Akhlaq Ahmad.

    The two men have alleged that they were witnesses in the trial against the accused and that they were also the victims of the violence.

    The Babri mosque was demolished by karsevaks on December 6, 1992.

    After a long legal battle, the special CBI court on September 30, 2020, pronounced the judgment in the criminal trial and acquitted all the accused, also including the then Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh and senior BJP leaders MM Joshi, Vinay Katiyar, Sadhvi Ritambhara and Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.

    The trial judge had refused to believe newspaper cuttings and video clips as evidence as the originals of the same were not produced, while the entire edifice of the case rested on these pieces of documentary evidence.

    The trial judge also held that the CBI could not produce any evidence that the accused had a meeting with karsevaks in this connection.

    Assailing the findings of the trial court, the revisionists pleaded that the trial court committed an error by not convicting the accused having ample evidence on record.

    “The trial judge did not appreciate the evidence of conspiracy in the right perspective,” they alleged in the petition.

  • Please spare me your sympathy: Narasimha Rao told Cabinet colleagues after Babri demolition

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: The morning after the Babri mosque was demolished on December 6, 1992, the Union Council of Ministers met and when they tried to convey how they all felt for the then Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao, he retorted: “Please spare me your sympathy.”

    This anecdote finds mention in senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid’s new book “Sunrise over Ayodhya: Nationhood in Our Times”.

    Khurshid says the immediate shock of the “unthinkable happening” gradually settled down to a kind of numbness.

    The demolition happened on a Sunday and on the morning of December 7, the Council of Ministers gathered in a crowded ground-floor room at Parliament House, he says.

    The mood was sombre, and a pall of gloom hung on the gathering.

    “Understandably, most were at a loss for words, but Madhavrao Scindia broke the ice to say how we all felt for Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. The reaction of the embattled PM took us by surprise when he retorted, ‘Please spare me your sympathy’,” Khurshid recalls.

    He also says after Rao’s “curt response”, there was no further opportunity for discussing the subject again and the meeting ended.

    The Uttar Pradesh government of Kalyan Singh was dismissed on December 6 itself and a week thereafter, the BJP governments in Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh were dismissed by the President, as advised by the cabinet, he says.

    Khurshid also writes that on the night of December 6, he and some other young ministers, “gathered at the residence of Rajesh Pilot to take stock, and then proceeded together to C K Jaffer Sharief -thus two bold voices in the government were roused”.

    He says calls were “made to Principal Secretary A.N.Verma, who suggested that we speak to the PM. We got through to the PM and suggested to him that Rajesh Pilot be included in the group that was flying to Faizabad”.

    Rao “in turn asked us to speak to A.N. Verma again, and thus the chase continued for a while, until we were told that the PM would not be available, having turned in for the night.

    The urgency was for a senior functionary of the government to intervene before the idols, which had been shifted during the demolition of the mosque, were reinstalled on the site”, he writes.

    The reinstallation was eventually done, but when it appeared the next morning that a roof would be placed above the idols, the government moved to disperse the conspicuously reduced crowd of karsevaks, he adds.

    According to Khurshid, the politics shaped by the temple-mosque contest drove the Congress to an existential crisis in Uttar Pradesh and, after temporary empowerment of the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samajwadi Party, gave the BJP a springboard for dominance in the state and in Centre.

    “The Ayodhya saga was undoubtedly related to certain organised groups among Hindus and Muslims trying to secure leadership of their respective communities by tilting the scales in favour of a mandir and a mosque, respectively,” he says.

    The Supreme Court, Khurshid claims, has “put its stamp on history and in a sense turned the last page. It has, in the process, written itself into the history” of Ayodhya.

    If that has laid the foundation of a grand reconciliation or perpetuated the stress of majoritarian might versus right, or a mixture of the two, only time will tell, he adds.

    Khurshid feels the greatest opportunity the judgment offers is for a reaffirmation of India as a secular society.

    “It is a decision that refutes the idea of Hindu Rashtra and amplifies the practical handling of sensitive religious concerns in a secular system. Upholding the purpose and effect of the Places of Worship Act, among other matters, is a clear indication that the secular edifice of India and the commitment of its highest court to the Constitutional principles we cherish have not only remained undisturbed but have indeed been fortified,” he writes.

    Khurshid says his book, published by Penguin Random House, is an “attempt to see hope in what might be a judicious decision, even if some people think it was not entirely fair.

    When people begin to disagree about what is fair, there are cracks that need attention beyond all sentiments natural to human beings”.

  • UP High Court to hear plea against acquittal of Babri mosque demolition accused

    By PTI
    LUCKNOW: The Allahabad High Court will hear Wednesday a plea against the acquittal of all 32 accused persons, including BJP veterans L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, in the 1992 demolition of the Babri mosque case.

    The petition filed on January 8 by two Ayodhya residents, Haji Mahmood Ahmad and Syed Akhlaq Ahmad, will be heard by a Lucknow bench of the high court.

    The petition, filed by two Ayodhya residents with All India Muslim Personal Law Board executive member Zafaryab Jilani as their counsel, was on Tuesday listed for hearing by a bench of Justice Rakesh Srivastava.

    While filing the petition last week on behalf of Ayodhya residents Jilani, who had also been the convener of the Babri Masjid Action Committee, had said the court was moved because the CBI has not yet appealed against the last year’s judgment.

    The two Ayodhya residents, in their revision petition, have also claimed themselves to be witnesses in the trial against the accused persons.

    The Babri mosque was demolished by “kar sewaks” on December 6, 1992.

    After a long legal battle, the special CBI court on September 30, 2020, had pronounced the judgment in the criminal trial and acquitted all the accused, including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh in 1992.

    The trial judge had refused to believe newspaper cuttings, video clips as evidence as their originals copies were not produced in the court and the case rested on these pieces of documentary evidence.

    The trial judge had also held that the CBI could not produce any evidence that the accused had a meeting of mind with ‘kar sewaks’, who demolished the structure.

    Assailing the trial court’s findings, the petitioners have pleaded that the subordinate court committed error in not convicting the accused persons despite the presence of ample evidence on record.

    “The trial judge did not appreciate the evidence of conspiracy in the right perspective,” the petitioners have contended their plea.

    The petitioners have also sought that the record from the trial court be summoned, the judgment of September 30, 2002 be set aside and the all the 32 accused be held guilty and punished accordingly.