Will go to Jail for Ram Temple

BJP leader Vinay Katiyar today said he is ready “to go jail for a Ram temple in Ayodhya”, but denied the CBI’s allegation of a conspiracy by top leaders of his party and others to bring down the 16th-century Babri mosque in Ayodhya.

Katiyar is among several top BJP leaders who were ordered this morning by the Supreme Court to face trial for criminal conspiracy in the Babri mosque demolition. Others include party veterans LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi and union minister Uma Bharti.

“I will go to jail if I have to ensure that a Ram temple is built in Ayodhya,” said Mr Katiyar, 62, also stating, “We will face the Supreme Court decision. There was no criminal conspiracy. The CBI is deliberately trying to target us.”

The top court’s order today accepts a CBI request that Mr Advani and 12 others be tried for criminal conspiracy in the case. The country’s premier investigation agency has alleged that Mr Advani and the others had plotted the demolition and that they had held a secret meeting at the residence of Vinay Katiyar on the night before December 6, 1992, when lakhs of kar sevaks or volunteers pulled down the mosque.

The leaders are also accused of making provocative speeches from a platform 200 metres away from the mosque just before it was razed.

Vinay Katiyar was then the BJP member of Parliament from the Faizabad constituency of Uttar Pradesh, of which Ayodhya is a part. He is the founder of the Bajrang Dal, an outfit linked to the BJP’s ideological mentor the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS and has been one of the prominent faces of the movement for a temple to be built at the spot where the Babri mosque was constructed by the Mughals.

Many Hindus believe that the mosque was built over the birthplace of Lord Ram and they want a temple to be built there.