Lucknow gets ready for Babri demolition verdict
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Image credit: PTI
Lucknow : The old High Court building in Kaiserbagh is abuzz with activity again.
Just hours from now, the special CBI court here will pronounce verdict in Babri mosque demolition case, involving some of the biggies in Indian politics.
Former Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani, former union ministers, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, former MP Vinay Katiyar and several other VHP leaders are among the 32 accused waiting for the verdict on Wednesday.
Court room number 18 will hear the verdict. It has been decided only five out of 32 accused will be inside the courtroom at any time. Others will be seated outside in the lobby.
Additional district and session judge (Ayodhya matters), SK Yadav, who has been hearing the case on a day-to-day basis since May 2017, has asked all the 32 accused to be present in the court when he pronounces the judgment.
There were 49 accused in the case apart from lakhs of 'kar sevaks' named in two separate FIRs lodged at the Ram Janmabhoomi (RJB) police station on the day of the demolition.
Seventeen named accused, including Bal Thackeray, Ashok Singhal, Mahant Avaidyanath, Giriraj Kishore and Vijayaraje Scindia, passed away during the course of the trial, leaving 32 accused in the case.
L K Advani, Uma Bharti, MM Joshi and Mahant Nritya Gopal Das are unlikely to be present when the court announces its verdict, IANS report says.
Their applications for exemption are likely to be moved before the court; their counsel will seek exemption on health grounds.
Uma Bharti has been found Covid positive and admitted to a hospital while Kalyan Singh was also hospitalised after testing positive for Covid.
High alert has been sounded across the state ahead of the verdict on Wednesday.
More than 2,000 police personnel, half of them in civil clothes, have been deployed in the area.
Alongside, security has been beefed up in 25 districts known to be communally sensitive in Uttar Pradesh.
With inputs from IANS