In yet another shocking twist in the Babri Masjid demolition case, a special CBI Court in Lucknow, on Wednesday, acquitted all the accused in the criminal conspiracy case surrounding the demolition of the 16th century Babri mosque in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992.
Special CBI judge SK Yadav delivered the judgment that ran into over 2,000 pages and held that there was no criminal conspiracy behind the demolition. The court further held that the demolition wasn’t planned and that the accused persons were trying to stop the mob, and not inciting violence.
The court further said that it could not probe the authenticity of the audio and video evidence provided by the CBI. It said that those who climbed the dome were anti-social elements.
The 32 accused included political heavyweights such as Lal Krishna Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharati, Sakshi Maharaj, Kalyan Singh, Vinay Katiyar among others. Three key accused; VHP’s Ashok Singhal, Giriraj Kishore and Vishnu Hari Dalmia are deceased. 26 of the accused including Vinay Katiyar, Dharamdas, Vedanti, Lallu Singh, Champat Rai and Pawan Pandey were present in court during the proceedings on Wednesday. LK Advani, MM Joshi, Uma Bharati and Kalyan Singh appeared via video conferencing. Bharati has recently been diagnosed with Covid-19.
This story will be updated when more elements of the judgment become available.
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