The CBI special court in Lucknow on Tuesday granted bail to all 12 accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case.
All the accused, including former union home minister L.K Advani, Union Minister Uma Bharti, senior BJP leader M.M Joshi, Vinay Katiyar religious leader Sadhvi Rithambara, have been granted bail. All of them, facing charges of conspiring to demolish the mosque on December 6, 1992, had reached Lucknow to appear before the court.
Before reaching the court, they had assembled at the VVIP guest house near CM’s residence in Lucknow where UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had welcomed them. Advani was accompanied by his daughter Pratibha Advani.
Former MP Mahant Ram Vilas Vedanti, before reaching the court, told the media, “We are not ashamed of what we have done. We demolished the disputed structure and everyone wants that a splendid Ram temple should come up at that site.”
Uma Bharti said, “It was an open movement. Lakhs of people were present there in Ayodhya and there was no conspiracy in it.”
“This is (the disputed site) the birth place of lord Ram. Even the High Court, in its verdict, has admitted it; then why should we be accused of conspiracy and felling down the mosque,” Katiyar asked.
It may be recalled these accused had requested the court last week to exempt them from personal appearance which the court had accepted.
The Supreme Court had, last month, directed the accused to face trial in the case. The court had transferred separate hate speech cases trial from a Raibareli court to special court in Lucknow to be heard together with the conspiracy cases.
The special court was given one month’s time to frame charges against accused and come out with the verdict in two years. A CBI special court had dropped charges against the accused in 2001 while the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court upheld the verdict of the special court in 2011.
The apex court, however, turned down the verdict and held that the demolition of Babri mosque was a crime which threatened the ‘secular fabric of the Constitution.’
The court had also pulled up the CBI for dragging the case for 25 years.
Besides Advani, Uma Bharti, M.M Joshi, Ritambhara, Vinay Katiyaar, the other accused in the case are Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, Mahant Ram Vilas, Baikunth Lal Sharma, Champat Rai, Dharam Das and and Satish Pradhan.
