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.
On Monday, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress clashed over the findings of the Liberhan Commission, which is believed to have indicted senior BJP leaders Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L K Advani and M M Joshi, among others, for the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992.
Terming demolition of Babri Masjid as an act of religious fanaticism and extreme prejudice, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday said communalism in all its forms was deplorable and asserted that it was the duty of the majority community to protect the minorities.
The 1992 Babri Mosque demolition was an "act of planned sabotage" and not a by frenzied mob of Hindu outfits, a news portal claimed on Friday on the basis of a sting operation it had carried over a period of two years.
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.
'We see that a BJP MP abuses a Muslim MP in the Parliament. People are saying that he should not have said all this in the Parliament, they are saying that his tongue was bad. This is the representative of the people for whom you voted'
Earlier on Wednesday, the district court ruled that a priest can perform prayers before the idols in a cellar of the Gyanvapi Masjid, a significant development in the legal battle over the mosque adjacent to the Kashi Vishwanath temple.
"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.
Bhartiya Janshakti Party President Uma Bharti in Bhopal on Tuesday said she is ready to own responsibility for the demolition of the disputed Babri mosque at Ayodhya and has no problem even if she is hanged on the issue.
'I am not a person who would do such things from behind the scenes.' 'I don't believe in taking somebody else's support for speaking out my mind.'
The top court said the extension of tenure of the special judge will only be for the purpose of concluding the trial and delivering the verdict in the case.
A group photo taken at the Bharatiya Janata Party office in Jaipur ahead of Tuesday's legislature party meeting showed Bhajan Lal Sharma in the very last row.
With the recent arrest of two Bharatiya Janata Party activists who had taken part in the Ayodhya agitation back in 1992 snowballing into a controversy, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday said a criminal is always a criminal unless acquitted by a court of law.
Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) international joint general secretary Surendra Jain on Tuesday warned All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi for his comment on the inauguration of Ram Temple in Ayodhya.
For the first time in his political career, he failed to carry his party to even a working majority -- and again, for the first time in his career, he finds himself in a situation where he cannot rule by dictatorial fiat, points out Prem Panicker.
Union minister Beni Prasad Verma on Monday accused Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav of conniving with Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani in the run-up to the demolition of Babri Masjid, while debunking a debate on whether he or Narendra Modi would be a better prime ministerial choice.
Born in Ayodhya, Ansari was the first to file the suit on the matter in the court of civil judge of Faizabad in 1949.
The Supreme Court has served a notice to senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi and 21 others citing a conspiracy to raze the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani on Sunday said that he felt the demolition of the Babri mosque in 1992 had 'badly dented' the credibility of his party.
In a respite to L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and 19 others in the Babri Masjid demolition case, the Allahabad High Court on Thuursday dismissed the Central Bureau for Investigation's revision petition challenging a special court decision to drop criminal proceedings against them.
During the interrogation of terror suspect T Nasir, the Bengaluru police have stumbled upon the existence of an interesting book that is used by Indian Mujahideen operatives to recruit Jihadis.Jerusalem to Babri is the most popular book among new recruits of the terror outfit.
Had it not been for Pankaj Tripathi, who must have worked hard to get those Vajpayee intonations and mannerisms so perfectly well, Ravi Jadhav's flattering portrait of Vajpayee would have been more vacuous than what we get to see, observes Prasanna Zore.
As the Ayodhya title suit verdict date nears, the News Broadcasters Association has set guidelines for electronic media asking them not to speculate about the judgement and not to show the footage of 1992 Babri Masjid demolition.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday adjourned till January 10 the hearing on the bail plea of former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Umar Khalid in a case lodged under anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) over his alleged involvement in the conspiracy behind the northeast Delhi riots of February 2020.
Ram Vilas Vedanti said Advani tried to persuade the karsevaks to come down from atop of the structure.
Five members of the Muslim side also participated in the survey. Its advocate Tauheed Khan said advocates of the Intezamia Masjid Committee Akhlaq and Mumtaz accompanied the survey team.
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.
In a major victory for the Hindu side, a Varanasi court on Wednesday allowed Hindu devotees to offer prayers inside the 'Vyas ka Tekhana' area inside the Gyanvapi mosque complex.
The saffron outfit organised a programme and took a pledge to ensure that a Ram temple was constructed at the disputed site.
Anupam Gupta, counsel for Liberhan Commission from 1999 to 2007, said Vajpayee cannot be indicted because he was neither given notice or summoned.
While directing the accused to present themselves in person, the judge had said no application for adjournment or exemption from personal appearance shall be entertained.
The construction of the three-storeyed Ram temple in Ayodhya will be completed by December this year, temple construction committee chairperson Nripendra Misra said on Thursday. The sprawling temple complex will also have other structures.
The best-case scenario is that the BJP will top out at around 50 seats in UP -- a drop of 12 from the 62 it had won in 2019. Taken in tandem with Maharashtra and Karnataka, this is what is likely to put paid to the BJP's ambitions of a third term for Modi, argues Prem Panicker.
In the wake of the Liberhan commision's report being tabled in Parliament, Sharat Pradhan recounts the day the Babri Masjid was felled.
Remnants of demolished Hindu temples were used to build the Babri Masjid, Justice Dharam Veer Sharma of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has held and cited evidence provided by the Archeological Survey of India to support the findings.
A senior IPS officer, who deposed that BJP leader L K Advani had made a provocative speech in Ayodhya moments before the Babri masjid was demolished by Sangh Parivar activists in 1992, was on Friday cross-examined by the defence in a Rae Bareli special court.
Questioning the timing of a 'sting' operation on the Babri Masjid demolition, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday alleged that it was "sponsored", accusing the Congress of using "pawns" to vitiate the atmosphere before elections and asked the Election Commission to stop its publication and telecast.
Justice Shailendra Saxena posted the petition, which also impleads the Union of India, the Central Bureau of Investigation and Uttar Pradesh as opposite parties, for hearing on Wednesday.
On the recent decision allowing survey of the Gyanvapi mosque, Madani said, "We have no objection to the survey. We believe that if the survey is conducted honestly, nothing will come out of it."
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