The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday dismissed a petition against the acquittal of senior BJP leaders LK Advani, Uma Bharti, Murli Manohar Joshi, Kalyan Singh and other Hindutva figures in the Babri Masjid demolition case.
The Allahabad HC had reserved its judgment on October 31 after concluding the arguments.
A bench of Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Saroj Yadav dismissed the appeal filed in the matter by two Muslim residents of Ayodhya, Haji Mahboob Ahmad and Syed Akhlaq Ahmad, against the judgment of a special CBI court in Lucknow acquitting the saffron politicians.
Haji Mahboob Ahmad and Syed Akhlaq Ahmad had challenged the 2020 judgment of the special CBI court that held there was nothing on record to establish the existence of a conspiracy to demolish the Babri Masjid.
The appeal claimed that they were victims as well as witnesses who suffered the loss of their historic place of worship, the Babri Masjid.
They also said to HC that they suffered financial loss on account of destruction of their houses due to arson, loot etc.
In 2020, all the 32 people were accused of criminal conspiracy and inciting a mob to tear down the Mughal-era mosque in 1992.
On December 6, 1992, tens of thousands of Hindus gathered for a rally near the mosque site and groups of them climbed the mosque and demolished it with axes and hammers.
The demolition sparked nationwide anti-Muslim violence that left some 2,000 people dead, most of them Muslims.
Meanwhile, today marks three years of Babri verdict. Exactly three years ago, on 9 November in 2019, Supreme Court awarded the mosque site to Hindus, handing the BJP a victory to drive home its Hindu nationalist agenda. In its ruling the top court ordered the entire disputed area of 2.77 acres to be allocated to Hindus for the construction of the temple. Muslim groups and activists called the verdict as “blatant injustice towards Muslims.”
