Babri demolition verdict on Sep 30; Advani, Joshi asked to remain present in court

New Delhi: A special CBI court will deliver its verdict in the 28-year-old Babri Masjid demolition case on September 30.

Special CBI Judge Surendra Kumar Yadav will deliver the verdict. The court has asked all the 32 accused including senior BJP leaders Lal Krishna Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, and Uma Bharti to be present in the court.  Former Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh is on the list as well.

Advani, Joshi, and Bharati —  key leaders of the BJP at the time, are accused of a conspiracy that led to the demolition of the 15th Century mosque in December 1992.

Advani, 92, had recorded his statement before the special CBI court through video conference on July 24. Joshi, 86, recorded his statement a day before Advani. Both have denied all charges against them.

The charges against the three leaders are of the conspiracy that led to the demolition of the mosque by the ‘kar sevaks’ on December 6, 1992.

 The verdict on the demolition of the Babri Masjid comes after Supreme Court’s verdict in the Babri Masjid title dispute case in November in which the top court had handed over the disputed land in Ayodhya to a government-run trust for the construction of a Ram Temple.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the construction of the temple on August 5 after the Supreme Court, on 9 November 2019, ordered that the disputed land be handed over to a trust to build the Ram Temple.

The apex court also ordered the government to give an alternative 5-acre plot to the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board to build a mosque.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Kashmir Monitor staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)