NEW DELHI: A special CBI court acquitted all 32 accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case on Wednesday and said there was no premeditated conspiracy to raze the structure, in stark contrast to the findings given by the Liberhan Commission, which had held that the demolition was “well-orchestrated and planned”.
The special court said a section of karsevaks abruptly got agitated, which led to violence and that the demolition happened “in the spur of a moment”.
Whereas, the commission was convinced that the “events of the day were neither spontaneous nor unplanned nor an unforeseen overflowing of the people’s emotions, nor the result of a foreign conspiracy.”
“How can then it be said that there was a meeting of minds and that all of them had the same objective to bring down the structure?” the court asked.
While special Judge SK Yadav stated that ‘kar seva’ itself was not unlawful since it was being carried out following permission from the SC, which had not put a cap on the number of people allowed, the panel had pointed out the mobilisation of such a large number of ‘karsevaks’ could not have been for symbolic karseva alone.
Although judge Yadav gave a clean chit to all the accused, including BJP and VHP veterans LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Ashok Singhal etc. for lack of evidence, the Liberhan commission had found “individual culpability” on the part of all the accused.
“It can’t be assumed even for a moment that Advani or Joshi did not know the designs of the Sangh Parivar. They were party to the decisions which had been taken,” the panel had stated in its report, compiled over a period of 17 years.
Acquitting then CM Kalyan Singh, the court held that he did all in his capacity to ensure law and order in the state. In contrast, the commission had held that Singh “refused to allow even a single measure which might impede the Ayodhya campaign or prevent the assault on the disputed structures, the journalists or the innocent public."
“Kalyan Singh, his ministers and his handpicked bureaucrats created man-made and cataclysmic circumstances which could result in no consequences other than the demolition of the disputed structure and broadened the cleavage between the two religious communities resulting in massacres all over the country...,” stated the report that ran into 1000-pages.