CBI officials say no new evidence in sting on Babri Mosque demolition: report
New Delhi: CBI officials on Friday said that the sting operation carried out by a news portal revealing details of the alleged conspiracy by rightwing outfits to bring down Babri Masjid in 1992 had no evidentiary value as it has already concluded the investigation and the matter was at trial stage, said media reports.
Reportedly a senior CBI officer said, “All the aspects were included in the chargesheet filed by us. We had examined hundreds of persons including those shown in the sting operation on Friday. There is no new revelation in it”.
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.
At a press conference here, Cobrapost editor Anirudh Behl screened the recorded interviews in which some low rung leaders of BJP, VHP and Shiv Sena have claimed that the operation was carried out with precision by their volunteers after going through intensive training and mock drills.
Among those who were interviewed were BJP leaders Uma Bharti, Kalyan Singh and Vinay Katiyar, who talked about the events in the run up to the demolition.
Behl rejected BJP's charge that the sting operation was being made public at the behest of Congress for polarising elections.
Codenamed 'Operation Janmabhoomi' was based on the interview of 23 leaders who were allegedly in the forefront of the demolition for which a conspiracy was hatched at the level of two Hindu outfits, VHP and Shiv Sena, but not jointly.
The "confessions" named BJP leaders L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti and others for "secretly planning" out the demolition in an elaborate way, the news portal said.
The tapes claimed that even the then chief minister of Uttar Pradesh Kalyan Singh and former Prime Minister P.V Narsimha Rao had was in the know about the imminent demolition.
The investigation claimed that the entire "sabotage" was planned with so much secrecy that no government agency got a wind of it. After many years of investigation, the CBI has not been able to find clinching, corroborative evidence against all those 40 it has made accused in its chargesheet, it claimed.
Cobrapost claimed that out of the 23 who were "were involved in the demolition of Babri Masjid, either as conspirators or as executors" and interviewed, 12 were from Bjrang Dal-VHP-BJP combine, five from Shiv Sena and the rest from other Hindu religious outfits.
Cobrapost claimed that both the Hindu outfits had trained their cadre as part of an action plan many months before it was implemented on December 6 and even a 'balidani jatha' (suicide squad) was also formed with the trained RSS workers.
Bajrang Dal, the youth wing of VHP, had its training in Surkhej of Gujarat, while Shiv Sena trained its cadre in Bhind, Morena.
An oath (sankalp) for the construction of a grand Ram Temple at the disputed site after removing the structure was also administered to 'karsevaks' in the presence of L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Ashok Singhal, Giriraj Kishore and Acharya Dharmendra, apart from the entire galaxy of Hindu leaders, the investigation revealed.
While the VHP brought together around 1,200 RSS workers and named it 'Laxman Sena' with a clarion call or secret code of 'Jai Sheshavtaar', Shiv Sena meanwhile had a similar band of local workers at Ayodhya and had named it Pratap Sena.
The investigation claimed that while Shiv Sena had planned to use dynamite to bring down Babri if traditional methods failed, a Bihar team used petrol bombs to dismantle the structure.
"There are two more persons who were responsible for Babri demolition as both were keeping a close watch on the developments but did nothing--Kalyan Singh, then chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, had knowledge before hand of what was going to happen.
Mahant Ram Vilas Vedanti, a former BJP MP, claimed in the tapes, "On the December 5 night itself Kalyan Singh was informed of it and he was told that if need be the structure would be felled. Now, you decide what you have to do)."
Cobrapost also Sakshi Maharaj, another former BJP MP, also claimed in the interview of having given Kalyan Singh a minute-by-minute account of the developments.
The sting operation claimed that the allegations of former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao having a hand in the demolition were found to be true as certain leaders Vinay Katiyar, B L Sharma, Santosh Dubey, Sakshi Maharaj and Mahant Ram Vilas Vedanti "openly acknowledged" Rao’s supportive role.
Two sets of cases were registered — one against veteran BJP leader L K Advani and others who were at Ram Katha Kunj in Ayodhya when Babri masjid was demolished and second against lakhs of unknown 'kar sevaks' who were in and around the disputed structure.
