Can ordinary citizens counter this backward march? Can peace activists ensure that the two communities retain their bonds? Do they have a choice, asks Jyoti Punwani.
Even as the 19th anniversary of the demolition of Babri Mosque in Ayodhya on Tuesday remained a non-event, what came as a pleasant surprise was the message of peace and communal amity from none other than Babri Masjid Action Committee.
The Hindu litigants claim the mosque holds signs suggesting that it was a temple once.
Sources said that Shah was accompanied by a battery of government lawyers as he met Advani at the 92-year-old leader's residence in connection with the case.
The Congress on Monday gave a clean chit to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and spiritual preacher Deoraha Baba, whose names figure in the list of those found culpable by the Liberhan Commission, for the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. "Vajpayee's name was not in the conspiracy (to demolish Babri mosque). His name was only in one of the lists," Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said.
The government said it was possible that some misdirected elements may wish to disturb communal peace and harmony on the eve of December 6, the day when the Babri masjid was demolished in Ayodhya 17 years ago.
The mosque is coming up in the Uttar Pradesh district pursuant to the Supreme Court verdict in the Ram Janmabhoomi case.
'Unless Justice Chandrachud's judgment is (over)turned, there is no end to it.'
The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought responses from Bharatiya Janata Party veteran L K Advani and others leaders on a plea against dropping of criminal conspiracy charge against them in the Babri mosque demolition case.
Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Saturday targeted the Bharatiya Janata Party over its attempt to reach out to the minorities, questioning whether it will take action against Narendra Modi for the Gujarat riots or L K Advani will accept his "crime" in the Babari Mosque demolition.
The statement of the 86-year-old leader was recorded in the court of Special Judge S K Yadav through video conference.
Significantly, none of the one-time frontrunners of the temple movement were around. Even former local MP and founder of the Hindu hardline Bajrang Dal Vinay Katiyar kept away from Ayodhya.
Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party of raking up the Ayodhya issue in a bid to gain political mileage, the Samajwadi Party on Wednesday claimed that it had never given a clean chit to former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh on the Babri Masjid demolition issue and blamed the Congress for being 'equally responsible' for it."The SP never gave a clean chit to Kalyan on the Babri Mosque demolition. But the fact is that the Congress is equally responsible," said Amar.
A special Central Bureau of Investigation court on Tuesday fixed November 18 as the next date of hearing in the Babri mosque demolition case. "On the request of defence counsel Hari Dutt Sharma, who is seeking an adjournment on personal grounds, Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Vishnu Prasad Agarwal posted the matter for further hearing on November 18," the prosecution said.
The Allahabad high court on Monday dismissed a petition filed against the allotment of land in Ayodhya's Dhannipur village for the construction of a mosque, following the Supreme Court verdict in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute.
A former personal security officer of senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani told a special court on Friday that the Faizabad police had intelligence inputs about the possibility of attack on the Babri mosque by "kar sevaks" and its demolition.
During the freedom struggle, Shah had launched revolts in the Awadh region. He made the local mosque, Masjid Sarai, located in Chowk area of Faizabad his headquarters. As he liberated Faizabad and larger part of Awadh region, he used the premises of this mosque to hold meetings with rebel leaders.
A senior Indian Police Service officer deposed before a special Central Bureau of Investigation court on Friday as a prosecution witness in the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition case, in which L K Advani and other Sangh Parivar leaders have been accused of inciting violence.
In a historic verdict in November on the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of construction of a temple. It also ruled that an alternative five-acre plot must be found for a mosque within Ayodhya.
Opposition parties led by the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday created ruckus in the Lok Sabha by resorting to loud sloganeering to disrupt Union Home Minister P Chidambaram while making a statement over the Liberhan Commission's report related to the Babri mosque demolition during the ongoing discussion.
Advani denied his involvement in the alleged conspiracy along with 'kar sevaks' to demolish the disputed structure in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992. He pleaded he was completely innocent and was unnecessarily dragged in the case owing to political reasons.
"Interim orders wherever granted shall continue. Re-list in first half of April, 2024," the bench said in its order and directed the parties to complete the pleadings by then.
Special Judge SK Yadav also fixed July 23 for recording the statement of BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi through video conferencing.
The committee takes care of 22 mosques, including the Gyanvapi Masjid, in the city and it has been presenting the Muslim side in the Gyanvapi mosque-Shringar Gauri complex case.
A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra asked the ASI not to take recourse to any invasive act during the survey.
He also said that now everyone should listen to RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's advice to shun habit of fighting on small disputes.
Here is the chronology of events in the Ayodhya Ram temple issue.
The plea, filed by advocates Shishir Chaturvedi and Karunesh Kumar Shukla, said that apart from private individuals and members of state Sunni Board, the presence of central and state government representatives was essential to ensure proper management of the funds.
The Act prohibits conversion of any place of worship and provides for the maintenance of the religious character of any place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947.
Five members of a school management near Bantwal in Dakshina Kannada district have been booked.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari and Information and Broadcasting Minister Venkaiah Naidu were among those who attended the meeting, sources said.
Samajwadi Party leader and Kairana MP Iqra Choudhary has moved the Supreme Court seeking effective implementation of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991. This move comes amidst several petitions challenging the law's validity, including those filed by the Akhil Bhartiya Sant Samiti and lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay. The Supreme Court, in December 2022, had restrained all courts from examining fresh suits and passing interim orders in pending cases seeking to reclaim religious places. The Act aims to maintain the religious character of places of worship as they existed on August 15, 1947, but the dispute relating to Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid at Ayodhya was kept out of its purview. The court has listed Choudhary's plea with other pending pleas for February 17.
The Babri mosque in Ayodhya was demolished by karsevaks on December 6, 1992.
The law prohibits conversion of any place of worship and provides for the maintenance of the religious character of any place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947.
In the appeal filed before the high court, it has been pleaded that the Hindu side's suit itself is barred by order 7 rule 11 of the Civil Procedure Code, Naqvi said.
Sunni Central Waqf Board Chairman, Zufar Farooqui said some persons are advising that land should not be taken for the Babri mosque.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar also indicated that it may not take up the pending scheduled petitions, heard earlier by a three-judge bench, during the day as it was sitting in a combination of two judges.
The Supreme Court of India is scheduled to hear a batch of petitions challenging the validity of certain provisions of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which prohibits lawsuits to reclaim a place of worship or change its character from what prevailed on August 15, 1947. The pleas, including one filed by Ashwini Upadhyay, argue that these provisions violate the right to judicial remedy and create an arbitrary cut-off date. The matter will be heard in the backdrop of several ongoing cases related to places of worship, including the Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi and the Shahi Idgah Mosque in Mathura. The Muslim side has cited the 1991 law to argue that such suits are not maintainable. The Supreme Court had previously sought the Centre's response to Upadhyay's petition, which alleged that the law creates an "arbitrary and irrational retrospective cut-off date" for maintaining the character of places of worship.
The EC takes action for her remarks on former anti-terror squad chief Hemant Karkare and Babri mosque demolition
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