Muslim Bodies to Collectively Decide on Challenging Babri Demolition Case Verdict: AIMPLB

All-India Muslim Personal Law Board senior member Maulana Khalid Rasheed Firangi Mahali on Wednesday said organisations representing the community will together decide whether they need to challenge or not the CBI court verdict in the Babri mosque demolition case. He said Muslims in the country have always honoured court verdicts and will continue to do so.

On Wednesday morning, the special court had acquitted all 32 accused, including former deputy prime minister L K Advani, ex-Union minister M M Joshi, Uma Bharti and former UP chief minister Kalyan Singh.

Refusing to comment on their acquittal, Mahali said, “I don’t have anything to say on the verdict. Everybody knows that the law was brazenly broken in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992. Even the Supreme Court had termed the demolition of Babri Masjid as a criminal incident. Although, who is criminal and who is not, it is up to the courts to decide. On this decision of the court, Muslim organisations will decide whether to appeal or not or whether there will be any benefit of this appeal.”

Meanwhile, Haji Mahboob, the first person who had registered an FIR and a litigant in the case, reacted strongly to the judgment and said that people like Kalyan Singh have openly accepted that they had demolished the Babri mosque, still the courts could not find evidence against them.

“Kalyan Singh himself had said, ‘Yes, I am proud that I have brought down the mosque and I have no problem.’ Ram Vilas Das Vedanti used to say, ‘I am proud that I have brought down the mosque.’ Everyone used to say the same but despite that, all have been acquitted. Jungle raj is going on.” On the question of challenging the verdict of CBI Special Court, Mehboob said, “Something will have to be done.”

Reacting to the judgment, senior lawyer Zafaryab Jilani said, “We will challenge this decision in the high court.”

In the case registered by Haji Mehboob, 40 people were accused in the charge sheet filed by the police in the court. Later, as the scope of the investigation increased, 9 more people were charged. In this way, a total of 49 people were accused in the case. Of these, 17 have died while 32 have been acquitted.