Former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao is back in the news with the All India Muslim Personal Law Board accusing him of being equally responsible for the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992. The board went on to say that Rao could never be forgiven for the demolition of the Babri Mosque.
Besides sensitive locations in Ayodhya like the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri mosque, security has been tightened on ghats and temples in Varanasi and other vital installations across the state, official sources said.
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.
Facing criticism over his remarks on Babri mosque issue, Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Saturday said he never tried to equate the demolition of the shrine with 26/11 Mumbai attacks.
Here are the key figures among the 32 accused in the Babri mosque demolition case who were on Wednesday acquitted by a special CBI court in Lucknow of all charges.
It's intriguing that the prime minister now wants his American partner to help protect the Hindu minority in Bangladesh. That's conceding to the Americans a pre-eminence India has always contested, resented and feared, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
It is not immediately clear if they have to be present in court or can appear through a video conference due to restrictions imposed to fight the spread of coronavirus.
No member of the Congress' first family has visited Ayodhya since the demolition of the Babri Masjid 24 years ago, in December 1992.
The Babri mosque issue on Thursday rocked the Lok Sabha with some members demanding action on the report of Liberhan Commission which probed its demolition 20 years ago.
Singh, who was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh when the 16th-century structure was razed on December 6 in 1992, was first taken in judicial custody by the court after he appeared before it in response to the summons in the demolition case.
'People don't know about the immense pressures that come with this position -- every decision a judge takes affects real people and their lives.' 'This is not a job that one can take lightly.' A
Muslim groups observed 'day of sorrow' while Hindu outfits celebrated 'shaurya divas' on the 23rd anniversary of Babri mosque demolition on Sunday, which passed off peacefully amid tight security in Ayodhya, as well as in other parts of the country.
The hearing in the Babri masjid demolition case was on Tuesday deferred as the notification for nomination of a judge is still to be issued by the Allahabad high court. "The matter was not taken up today as a notification regarding nomination of magistrate is yet to be issued by the high court," prosecution sources said
The special court is hearing the 1992 demolition cases, including the one against BJP leaders L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti.
Gen Z may not know who these ladies are, but Uma Bharti and Sadhvi Rithambara played important roles in the Ram Mandir movement for the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allied organisations in the early 1990s.
'We are very close to become a theocratic State where Hinduism is the official religion of the government.'
As the 240-seater prime minister attempts to moderate his image of hardline hero, he has made room for others to elbow in and that is what is happening. And that it what will continue to happen from inside the BJP, notes Aakar Patel.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal have announced that they will mark the day as Shaurya Diwas and Vijay Diwas (day of victory) and have asked the people to light earthen lamps as on Diwali.
Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh has lashed out at Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, accusing him of trying to evoke Muslim sentiments on the controversial Babri Masjid demolition issue, to garner votes.
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.
After a meeting of its working committee in New Delhi, the board adopted a resolution which stated that the recent judgment of the Supreme Court on the maintenance of Muslim divorcee women is "against the Islamic law (Shariah)".
The Waqf Board has sought time from the top court for setting up of a committee for exploring an amicable resolution of the vexatious issue.
'The appearance of idols of deities inside Babri was not a miracle. It was a planned and surreptitious attack to put them on the intervening night of December 22-23, 1949'
The former finance minister said he would not brush aside the incident as a mere judgemental error.
A generation has passed and the demolition appears to be a story of a era gone by, says Rediff.com's Sharat Pradhan, who shares his experience as a witness in court in the Babri Masjid demolition case.
'During the nine years of BJP rule, not a single temple has been reconstructed.' 'They might have constructed the Ram temple as it is an emotional issue. But they are not much interested in issues like heritage.'
Kalyan Singh's apology over the Babri masjid demolition, thus, is expected to assuage the Samajwadi Party's rank and file who have been upset over Yadav joining hands with him. Kalyan Singh, who subsequently left the BJP to plow a lonely furrow only to rejoin the party and again left it recently over being sidelined, has since been edging closer to the Samajwadi Party's Mulayam Singh.
Renowned documentary film maker Anand Patwardhan said the video sharing website is "catering to Hindutva goons who want to kill all secular content."
The Uttar Pradesh government also said the then prime minister P V Narasimha Rao was 'indirectly' involved in it.
A bench comprising Justices P C Ghose and R F Nariman asked all the parties in the case to file their written arguments by April 6 and posted the matter for further hearing on April 7.
New BJP President L K Advani could not attend due to other urgent engagements
Amidst tight security, the 20th anniversary of Babri Mosque demolition is being observed on Thursday in the twin towns of Ayodhya and Faizabad as "black day" and "shaurya diwas" by Muslim and Hindu outfits respectively.
Seventeen years after the Babri Masjid was pulled down, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat on Saturday said there was no question for the Sangh to regret for what had happened and maintained that their full support to the "Ram temple movement" would continue.
A cabinet meeting outside Lucknow -- a rare event -- was held for the first time in Prayagraj in January of 2019.
On the twentieth anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya by a mob of enraged kar sevaks, it might appear that the dispute about the birthplace of Rama is a thing of the past.
Uneasy calm prevailed in Ayodhya, which on Saturday looked like a fortress, with deployment of more than 10,000 cops on the 22nd anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Mosque.
In an interview, he recalled how Hashim Ansari, one of the original litigants in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute, took him to the mosque on his bicycle.
