All acquitted in Babri demolition case as court observes incident not pre-planned

Lucknow, Sep 30: Nearly thirty years after the Babri Masjid was razed by a mob in Uttar Pradesh, a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Lucknow on Wednesday acquitted all 32 accused, including BJP leaders L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti. The court said there was no conclusive proof against the accused.

Reading out the verdict Judge SK Yadav observed that evidence against the accused are not strong enough and the Babri Mosque demolition incident was not pre-planned.

The judge also said that Ashok Singhal and other Sangh Parivar leaders wanted to save the structure as Ram Lalla statues were inside.

The case relates to the razing of the disputed structure in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992.

The 32 accused persons were former deputy prime minister Advani, former Union minister Joshi and Uma Bharti, former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh, during whose tenure the structure was pulled down, besides Vinay Katiyar and Sadhvi Rithambara.

Champat Rai, the general secretary of the trust in charge of constructing the temple, is also among the accused.

The CBI, which went into the case, produced 351 witnesses and 600 documents as evidence before the court. Charges were framed against 48 people, but 16 had died during the course of the trial.