Babri Masjid demolition was pre-planned, claims website

The Babri Masjid demolition was not spontaneous but an act of “planned sabotage” for which suicide squads were raised, karsevaks given army-like training and organisers thought of even using dynamite to bring down the structure, a web portal has claimed.

The expose ‘Operation Janmabhoomi’ by Cobrapost, which its editor Anirudh Behl claimed came after clandestinely taping conversations with 23 leaders for around two years, also alleged that senior leaders like L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Ashok Singhal attended secret meetings where they gave calls for demolition of the 16th century structure. Some of the leaders claimed that Advani and others were part of a congregation during which an oath was taken to construct the Ram temple in Ayodhya after demolishing the masjid. The assault on the masjid began soon after.

The expose also claimed that former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao and then Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh had prior information about the incident and they were updated about the demolition at regular intervals.

It also raised questions on the firing on karsevaks in 1990 with a then prominent BJP leader Sakshi Maharaj, a former MP, alleging that the killings were orchestrated by vested interests in the movement. He alleged that Singhal told Acharya Vamdev that until people die, the movement would not get a fillip.

“I was in Ayodhya that day, then why did I not take a bullet. I don’t know. But it was not Mulayam Singh Yadav who ordered firing. It was rather our own people who got our well-known people shot one by one. I will not name them, as they are the founders of the movement. We did not know it was our own people who were playing this game. If Mulayam ordered firing, why were these policemen not punished when the BJP came to power. Instead they were awarded good posts,” he said.

Blame on Vinay Katiyar

Senior BJP leader Uma Bharti also sought to point fingers at another leader Vinay Katiyar for the killing of two brothers in the police firing.

On the conspiracy angle, the expose said two groups – one (‘Lakshman Sena’) by VHP in Surkhej in Gujarat and another by Shiv Sena in Bhind-Morena (Pratap Sena) – were trained.

According to Dharmendra Gurjar, a former convenor of Bajrang Dal in Madhya Pradesh, a suicide squad was formed from around 1,200 cadre mobilised by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).

Gurjar said a camp organised in Surkhej in 1990 had 28 activists and they were given “army style training” like “scaling walls so that we could scale the structure”. He also alleged that leaders like Katiyar and Bharti added fuel to the simmering discontent of karsevaks by deciding in a secret meeting on December 5, 1992, to bring down the structure.