All Accused Acquitted In Babri Masjid Demolition Case
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2020-09-30 15:41:03
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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
View all posts by this Author
The Babri masjid was demolished by a huge crowd of kar sevaks who climbed on the top of the dome and broke the structure with assorted rods and rams. The nearly five centuries old structure crumbled. The 'event' was covered by international media. No BJP or VHP or Bajrang Dal leader of any repute was within 10 metres of the structure. They were using the loudspeakers to make allegedly inflammatory speeches that allegedly egged on the crowd (remember "ek dhakka aur do, Babri masjid tod do"?). I use the word allegedly only because the Special CBI court has said that the audio was inaudible. How what was heard clearly then become inaudible now?
The court has made five points: the incident was not pre-planned, the evidence against the accused was inconclusive, the structure was brought down by anti-socials, the authenticity of the audio and video evidence produced by the CBI cannot be proved and the audio evidence submitted is not clear. It added that the accused leaders tried to stop the crowd from razing the structure. If the audio was not clear, how did the court infer that?
It is quite possible that the kar sevaks were not expressly asked to come to Ayodhya to demolish the Babri masjid. No political party or religious organization is stupid enough to brazenly call upon the people to commit a criminal act. But the way frenzied kar sevaks trooped into Ayodhya at that time, it was evident that more than putting pressure on the government for the construction of the Ram Mandir, they wanted to demolish the disputed structure to pave the way for that.
Even if the accused are not guilty of planning and executing, or allowing the execution, of the demolition, they are guilty of asking a frenzied mob (a rough estimate put the number at 150000) to gather at the structure, knowing full well that a small spark would have resulted in what finally happened. The role of the CBI is also suspect.
The judgment shows the judiciary's impotence against mobocracy. It will embolden other mobs to perform other, equally heinous, criminal acts. The judiciary will have to come up with a response to on how it is going to handle such cases and how it will punish these faceless perpetrators and their political or other masters. If it does not, it will be a meek surrender to mobocracy and a licence will be provided to vested interests to incite mobs and get their dirty work done without the fear of being punished.
