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Anti-social elements razed Babri mosque, not the 32 accused or Kar Sevaks : CBI court

Anti-social elements razed Babri mosque, not the 32 accused or Kar Sevaks : CBI court

Lucknow, Sep 30 (UNI) In a historical judgement after November 9, 2019 Supreme court's verdict on the title suit of Ramjanambhoomi, a Special CBI court here, after a 28 year long trial, said anti- social elements were behind the razing of the disputed Babri mosque in Ayodhya on December 6,1992.

The special judge S K Yadav, acquitted all the 32 accused including L K Advani, MM Joshi, Uma Bharati and Kalyan Singh along with 3 sitting BJP MPs , after rejecting all the evidences given by the CBI, thus questioning the credibility of the premier investigating agency.
" the CBI had not been able to establish charges against the accused The court specifically said the accused had tried to pacify the crowd, not to pull down the Babri mosque," the judge said.
The court observed that the incident was not pre-planned and the accused had tried to persuade the mob against demolishing the structure. The court even took the name of ex VHP president late Ashok Singhal who tried his best to persuade the people who were behind the demolition.
" The leaders present at the site during the demolition were trying to stop the mob and not incite them. Stones pelting started from behind the disputed structure. Ashok Singhal wanted to keep the RSS off it and even the VHP didn’t have a role in demolition, the court said while the Special Judge Surendra Kumar Yadav , who also demits his office after exactly one year of extension, read out his exhaustive judgement in the presence of all the 32 accused, of which 26 were present physically.
As there was no concrete evidence, hence all the accused have been acquitted, the judge said.
However, the judge maintained that anti -social elements were behind the razing of the Babri mosque and no one else.
Giving reasons for not blaming the Kar Seveks for the demolition, the judge said all 'Kar Sewaks' were directed to bring water and flowers to keep both their hands busy on the day, as the record says.
Special CBI judge Surendra Kumar Yadav did not admit the videos produced by the Central Bureau of Investigation, holding that the recording had been tampered with, defence lawyer Manish Tripathi said.
The judge also did not admit the photographs submitted by the CBI since it could not produce the original negatives. The judge also agreed with the defence that the CBI did not follow provisions of the Evidence Act.
Mr Tripathi told reporters after the judgement that the court ordered acquittal on grounds that the evidence against them was insufficient, “The court said the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad did not have a role in the demolition. It was carried out by mischievous elements,” Tripathi said, giving details of the court verdict.
Senior counsel IB Singh, lawyer for two of the accused, said that the court rejected all the evidence produced by the CBI and acquitted all citing lack of proof.
The Special Judge said there was not a single evidence against any accused of instigating the crowd and rejected all the 350 evidence produced by the CBI against the 49 accused, of which 17 have died, under section 351 of the CrPC.
The judge also rejected the photographs presented as evidence by the CBI saying that there was no negative of the photos due to which its authenticity could not be examined. The audio and video cassettes were also not authentic and newspaper cuttings too could not be verified.
As the the judge announced the verdict, the BJP leaders, including three MPs and others raised " Jai Shree Ram" slogans in the court. The accused congratulated each other thereafter.
After the news of acquittal came out, the entire court premises was roaring with ' Jai Shree Ram ' slogan too.
All the 26 of the 32 accused were present in the court while former deputy prime minister Lal Krishna Advani, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharati, Kalyan Singh, Mahant Nritya Gopal Das and Satish Pradhan were absent.
The other accused who were present in the court were Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, Sakshi Maharaj, Lallu Singh( all MPs), Pawan Pandey, R N Srivastava, Ram Vilas Vedanti, Champat Rai, Mahant Dharam Das, Vinay Katiyar, Sadhvi Ritambhara, Prakash Sharma, Vijay Bahadur Singh, Santosh Dubey, Gandhi Yadav, Ramji Gupta, Kamlesh Tripathi, Ram charan Khatri, Jai Bhagwan Goel, Om Prakash Pandey, Amarnath Goel,Jai Bhan Pawaiya, Vijay Kumar Rai, Naveen Bhai Shukla, Acharya Dharmendra Deo , Sudhir Kumar Kakkar and Dharmendra Singh Gujjar.
The accused who have died during the trial period are Acharya Giriraj Kishore, Ashok Singhal , Vishnu Hari Dalmia, Baikunth Lal Sharma, Bal Thakre , Mahant Avaidhnath, Vinod KUmar Bass, Ram Narain Das, Hari Govind Singh, Laxm Narain Das, Ramesh Pratap Singh, Devendra Bahadur Rai, Moreshwar Sabe, Mahamandeleshwar Jagdish Muni Ramchandra Das Parahamans and Satish Nagar.
After 28 years of often-derailed investigations and trial, the matter saw completion of trial earlier this month. The CBI special court in Lucknow has taken up day to day hearing of the case since 2017, after a Supreme Court order. The last days of trial saw the surviving 32 accused appearing before the court and recording their statements under section 313 of the CrPC , some of them virtually . It should not come as a surprise that all the accused claimed innocence and alleged that they have been framed in the case.
Among the key accused are BJP veteran and former deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani, Member of BJP Margdarshak Mandal Murli Manohar Joshi, Former cabinet minister Uma Bharti, Former UP chief minister Kalyan singh, Sitting BJP MP Sakashi Maharaj and BrijBhushan Saran singh and former MP Vinay Katiyar.
Just minutes after the demolition of Babri mosque on December 6,1992 , the first FIR was registered against unknown “kar sevaks” under section of the Criminal Law Amendment Act.
Ten minutes later, a second FIR (no. 198/92) was registered under sections 153A, 153B, 505 of IPC against LK Advani, Ashok Singhal, Giriraj Kishore, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti, Vinay Katiyar, Vishnu Hari Dalmiya and Sadhvi Ritambhara. This was for hate-and-provocative-speech case.
Forty-seven other FIRs were also registered in the days to come related to offences of assault on media persons, looting valuables like cameras and reporting gadgets from them, etc. All FIRs were filed at Thana Ramjanmabhoomi in Ayodhya.
From 2017 onwards a speedy hearing in the case started after several years of legal dispute and complications, as the charges were framed and trial on the joint charge sheet began. In between, with Kalyan Singh becoming the governor of Rajasthan, trial against him was stopped since he occupied a constitutional office.
However, last year, after he demitted the office of the governor, the trial against him also began. Last month most of the big names in the case including Advani, MM Joshi, Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti, Vinay Katiyar and Champat Rai (general secretary of the Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust) recorded their final statements under section 313 of CrPC.
The trial in the case was completed in first week of September after which the court fixed the date of September 30 for pronouncement of the verdict.
UNI MB SY 1424

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