ISLAMABAD: Pakistan strongly condemned the “shameful” acquittal of the criminals responsible for demolishing the centuries-old Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992, saying “the Hindutva-inspired Indian judiciary miserably failed to deliver the justice again”.
Reacting to the Indian court’s decision in the Babri Masjid’s demolition case by acquitting all 32 accused including former deputy prime minister Lal Krishna Advani in the 28-year-old case, the Foreign Office spokesperson, Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri, described this yet another manifestation of the pliant judiciary under the extremist BJP-RSS regime, in which extremist “Hindutva” ideology takes precedence over all principles of justice and international norms.
“Taking almost three decades to decide on the criminal act which was televised live and happened as a result of well-planned Rath Yatras and on the instigation to mobs by the accused Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and other leaders of Sangh Parivar, tells the world that the Hindutva-inspired Indian judiciary miserably failed to deliver the justice again,” he said.
Chaudhri said that the demolition of the mosque had resulted in BJP-led communal violence leading to thousands of killings.
If there was a semblance of justice in the so-called largest “democracy”, the individuals, who had boasted of the criminal act publicly, could not have been set free, he added.
He stated that a wrong direction was earlier set by the Indian Supreme Court’s partisan verdict last year by handing over the Babri Masjid premises for building of Ram Mandir to the very Hindu parties, which had demolished the historic mosque.
“The acquittal today is even against that verdict which had noted that the demolition was “an egregious violation of rule of law. These reprehensible developments with state complicity, coupled with RSS-BJP’s deep-rooted hatred against minorities, particularly Muslims, point to India’s fast descent into a Hindu Rashtra, where minorities have been relegated as second class citizens,” the spokesperson remarked.
He pointed out that willful targeting of Muslims was rampant in today’s India – ranging from efforts to disenfranchise Muslims under anti-Muslim Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the looming National Register of Citizens (NRC), and a well-organised and orchestrated pogrom of Muslims in New Delhi, with state complicity in February this year, to other anti-Muslim measures such as demonizing, dispossessing, marginalising and subjecting Muslims to targeted violence.
He said that the world community, the United Nations and relevant international organisations were expected to play their role in safeguarding the Islamic heritage sites in India from the extremist Hindutva regime, and ensure protection of religious rights of minorities in India.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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