A special court at the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) acquitted the 32 defendants in the nearly three-decade-old Babri masjid demolition case on Wednesday.
Judge Surendra Kumar Yadav said that the demolition of the mosque was not planned in advance, but a spontaneous act. The case was related to the demolition of the disputed structure in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992.
Among the 32 defendants, LK Advani, MM Joshi, Uma Bharti and Kalyan Singh were not present in court for the hearing. While Advani and Joshi were advised not to travel due to age and the coronavirus disease pandemic and attended the hearing via the video link, Bharti and Singh contracted Covid-19.
“The CBI court acquitted the 32 defendants in the Babri Masjid demolition case. This puts an end to the long pending dispute related to the incident of December 6, 1992, ”said lawyer KK Mishra.
Mishra represented 25 of the 32 defendants in the case.
Twenty-six of the 32 defendants were present in court for a hearing. Sadhvi Ritambhara, Vinay Katiyar, Champat Rai, Jai Bhagwan Goyal, Acharya Dharmadas, Lallu Singh, Ram Vilas Vedanti, and Pawan Pandey were among them.
Iqbal Ansari, a petitioner in the Babri case, welcomed the CBI court’s decision. “It’s good that this is over. Let us all live in peace. Let there be no new problems of this nature. Hindus and Muslims have always lived in peace in Ayodhya, ”he said.
Some saints distributed sweets in Ayodhya after the verdict.
Security was strengthened at the court premises in Lucknow and no one was allowed to enter the courtroom, except for the defense and CBI lawyers and the accused.
The verdict in the case comes about 11 months after the Supreme Court, in November last year, ruled in favor of building a temple on the 2.77-acre site in Ayodhya.
A ceremony to mark the start of construction was held on August 5, attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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