Two Ayodhya residents move HC, challenge acquittal of Babri mosque demolition accused
Lucknow: Two Ayodhya residents on Friday moved the Allahabad High Court, challenging a CBI court's ruling that acquitted all 32 accused including BJP veterans L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi in the 1992 demolition of Babri mosque.
Their counsel is All India Muslim Personal Law Board executive member Zafaryab Jilani.
The advocate, who has also been convener of the Babri Masjid Action Committee, said the two filed the petition because the prosecuting agency CBI has not yet appealed against the judgment last year.
The petition was filed with the high court registry.
Ayodhya residents Haji Mahmood Ahmad, 74, and Syed Akhlaq Ahmad, 81, claimed in the petition that they were witnesses in the trial against those acquitted by the special court on September 30.
In their plea, they said the trial court committed an error in not convicting the accused while ample evidence was on the record. The trial judge did not appreciate the evidence of conspiracy in the right perspective, they claimed.
The petition sought that the record from the trial court is summoned, its judgment set aside and all the accused held guilty and punished accordingly.
The special court had acquitted all 32 people accused of inciting a mob of kar sevaks to demolish the Babri mosque in Ayodhya. They believed that the 16th-century mosque stood at the birthplace of Lord Ram.
In November 2019, a Supreme Court ruling on the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute had paved the way for the construction of the Ram temple at the contested site.
The apex court also ruled that a separate plot be allotted in Ayodhya to build a mosque.
Meanwhile, the CBI court had continued to hear the separate case related to the destruction of the mosque.
In its judgment that ran into 2,300 pages, the CBI court said there was no conclusive evidence against the 32 accused of being involved in any conspiracy to bring down the mosque.
Delivering the verdict on the day of his retirement, special Judge S K Yadav did not accept newspaper reports and video cassettes as evidence.
The court also observed that the late Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Ashok Singhal wanted to save the structure because Ram idols were inside.
The demolition of the mosque on December 6, 1992, had triggered riots and widened the rift between the communities.
Twenty-six of the accused were present in the Lucknow court when the judge read out the operative portion of the verdict.
Former deputy prime minister L K Advani, the then Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh, former Union ministers Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti, Ram Janmaboomi Teerth Kshetra Trust president Nritya Gopal Das and Shiv Sena leader Satish Pradhan had sought exemptions from personal appearance.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
