Babri Masjid case verdict: After 28 years, all 32 accused acquitted; demolition in Ayodhya not pre-planned

Twenty-eight years after the demolition of the Babri Masjid by thousands of 'karsevaks' at Ayodhya, a special CBI court here on Wednesday acquitted all thirty-two accused, including senior BJP leaders L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti, Kalyan Singh and others, who were charged with hatching a criminal conspiracy leading to the demolition of the Babri Mosque, citing lack of evidence against them.

Special judge (CBI) S K Yadav, in his verdict, which ran into 2,300 pages, said that the demolition of the disputed structure was not ‘pre-planned’ and that it was the handiwork of some 'anti-social elements,' who were among thousands of ‘karsevaks’. 'There is not enough evidence to show that the demolition was pre-planned,' he remarked.

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The court said that the incident happened ‘spontaneously’ and, giving a clean chit to the accused persons, added that they had in fact tried to stop the ‘karsevaks’ from demolishing the structure.

The special judge also said that the cassette of the speeches of the accused persons, which were introduced as evidence by the CBI, were 'tampered with' and were not ‘sealed’. The court also said that the negatives of the photographs of the accused persons were not furnished by the CBI. It also refused to accept the newspaper cuttings as evidence.

Besides Advani, Murali Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti and Kalyan Singh, those acquitted included Vinay Katyar, Sadhvi Ritambhara, Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, Ram Vilas Vedanti, Mahant Dharm Das, Satish Pradhan, Pawan Kumar Pandey, Lallu Singh, Prakash Verma, Vijay Bahadur Singh, Santosh Dubey, Gandhi Yadav, Ramji Gupta, Braj Bhushan Saran Singh, Kamalesh Tripathi, Ramchandra Khatri, Jai Bhagwan Goyal, Om Prakash Pandey, Jaibhan Singh, Sakshi Maharaj, Vinay Kumar Rai, Naveen Shukla, R N .Srivastava, Acharya Dharmendra Dev, Sudhir Kakkad and Dharmendra Gujjar.

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As many as 26 of the 32 accused persons were in the court, when the verdict was pronounced. Six accused persons were granted exemption from physical presence on medical grounds. There were in all 49 accused persons in this case to start with but 17 of them have died since then.

The court had reserved its verdict in the case on September one after conclusion of the hearing.

All the accused denied the charges and claimed that they were falsely implicated in the matter by the then Congress regime.

The accused persons, who died during the pendency of the trial, included, former VHP international president Ashok Singhal, Giriraj Kishore, Vishnu Hari Dalmiya, Mahant Avaidyanath and Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray's father Bala Saheb Thackeray.

The supreme court had directed the special CBI judge to deliver the verdict by September 30.

Also Read | Timeline of the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute

The cases, which pertained to the demolition of the disputed structure in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992 by thousands of 'karsevaks', were heard on a daily basis by the special CBI judge.

Soon after the demolition of the disputed structure, two FIRs were registered at the Ram Janmabhoomi police station in Ayodhya against unidentified 'karsevaks,' Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and BJP leaders. Forty seven other FIRs were also registered later.

The CBI, which was handed over the investigation of the cases, had filed a single charge-sheet in all the cases. The Allahabad high court, upon being approached by the BJP leaders, ordered to drop proceedings against them as the state government had not issued fresh notification transferring the trial of FIR no 198 in which their names had found mention to the special CBI court.