Babri Masjid verdict

In an affront to truth and decency, court went to say that the politicians were actually trying to stop the crowd

Almost 30 years after Babri Masjid was destroyed by extremist Hindu vandals, the special court hearing the related case has acquitted all of the living suspects for lack of evidence. After all these years, no one will go to jail for the destruction of the mosque. Some may frame this as a miscarriage of justice, but we ask: why would anyone have expected justice from the corrupted system that India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has created? The fact that several accused were prominent BJP leaders only underscores why it would have been a folly to believe that justice would be done.

The ruling party has managed to get terrorists’ convictions overturned so that they may contest elections. The fact that these terrorists could actually win their seats should serve as a reminder of the direction in which Indian society is heading. In this instance, all the court needed to convict was proof that the mosque’s destruction was pre-planned. Apparently, the court felt that thousands of rioters just spontaneously showed up, with no prompting by the dozens of politicians who had been calling for the destruction of a mosque that just happened to also be in Ayodhya and was also called Babri Masjid. Instead, in an affront to truth and decency, the court went as far as saying that the accused politicians were actually trying to stop the crowd. It did not even directly ‘name’ the unnamed saffron terrorists responsible, only blaming “anti-social elements”.

Witness accounts and all the audio and video evidence was deemed insufficient. Meanwhile, several witnesses, including journalists that testified before the Liberhan Commission, were not even called in by the prosecution, which shows how rigged the trial was. The accused did not even try to show remorse over what happened. BJP leader Jai Bhagwan Goyal, who was a member of the fascistic Shiv Sena when the mosque was demolished, went as far as saying, “We did nothing wrong. The whole of India is happy. Lord Ram’s temple is coming up in Ayodhya city,” pointing to the final objective of the Hindutva terrorists responsible for the crime.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 2^nd, 2020.

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