iNDICA NEWS BUREAU & AGENCIES
All accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case were acquitted by a Special CBI court in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, Wednesday.
In its judgment, the court said that the demolition was not pre-planned.
Twenty-six of the 32 accused had arrived at the court premises to hear the court’s verdict, while six others, including senior BJP leader LK Advani, had taken part in it through video conferencing.
There were 49 accused in the case out of which 17 have died. Therefore, the court pronounced its judgment on the rest 32 accused, who had been asked to be physically present in the court.
Owing to Covid-19 restrictions, senior citizens and those who are unwell among the accused were likely to be exempted from personally appearing in the court.
The Babri demolition case, however, has lost much of its steam after the Indian Supreme Court November 9, last year allowed construction of a Ram temple at the disputed site where the mosque once stood in Ayodhya.
The Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh (in file IANS photograph above), was demolished December 6, 1992. The movement to demolish the mosque and set up a Ram temple at the site catapulted the BJP into the centre stage of Indian politics.
The case moved at a snail’s pace due to judicial delays.
The trial only began in 2010, and proceeded at a slow pace till the Supreme Court ordered day-to-day hearings on April 19, 2017, and said that the judge hearing the case, SK Yadav, would not be transferred.
