NEW DELHI, 28 September 2003 — Murli Manohar Joshi, a leader of India’s ruling Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said yesterday he would contest court charges he incited mobs to tear down a mosque in 1992 setting off nationwide riots.
“I am prepared to fight a legal battle. And I am sure that with the people’s support I will come out clean against the false charges leveled against me,” Joshi told reporters.
A court on Sept. 19 ordered Joshi and seven other top Hindu leaders to stand trial over the 1992 destruction of the Babri Mosque in the city of Ayodhya in the northern Uttar Pradesh state.
The court did not press charges against Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani, who was in Ayodhya when zealots tore down the mosque.
Joshi resigned as India’s human resources minister immediately after the charges were announced by the special court in the northern city of Rae Bareli.
However, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, in Istanbul at the start of a three-nation tour, urged Joshi to reconsider. “I will certainly meet the prime minister after his return from abroad tomorrow (Sunday),” Joshi said.
Joshi and the six others have been ordered to appear before the Rae Bareli court on Oct. 10 to hear the charges that include spreading communal frenzy, rioting and unlawful assembly, all of which could lead to imprisonment.
The destruction of the Babri Mosque led to Hindu-Muslim riots that killed more than 2,000 people, mostly Muslims.
Experts say a major legal challenge against the charges could reveal politically embarrassing details about the actions of Advani, who is often tipped as Vajpayee’s successor.
Joshi dismissed the analysis saying: “There is nothing against Mr. Advani.”
“The aim of filing the review is not to go against Mr. Advani. The interpretation that this review will go against Mr. Advani is completely wrong,” Joshi said in separate comments to Outlook magazine.
The United News of India yesterday said that police recovered 300 kilograms of explosives, complete with detonators and fuse wires from the Orai railway station in Uttar Pradesh. Bags containing the explosives were brought to the railway station to be taken to the state capital Lucknow by a man who claimed to be transporting soap.
But when the parcel clerk at the station asked him for relevant papers, the man, who gave his name as Atiq Ahmed, slipped away.
When he did not return, police checked the bags and recovered the explosives, about 300 detonators and fuse wires.
