By IANS,
New Delhi: Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh Tuesday justified the 1992 razing of the Babri mosque and said he suspected a “political conspiracy” behind the Liberhan Commission of Inquiry that has indicted all the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders for its catastrophic event.
Unrepentant over the mosque destruction that sparked off communal violence across India, Kalyan Singh also admitted to reporters that it was true that he told the police not to open fire at the hundreds of thousnds of Hindu activists gathered in Ayodhyya on Dec 6, 1992.
Kalyan Singh said he had told the police to use their ‘lathis’ and tear gas to disperse the ‘kar sevaks’. “But I made it clear that there should be no firing on the kar sevaks.
“The question before me was: who should I save? I prevented a massacre. The structure (mosque) went (in the process).”
The Liberhan Commission has come down strongly on Kalyan Singh, portraying him as one of the key men responsible for the events leading to the razing of the 16th century mosque.
Hindu radicals who tore it down claimed that the mosque had been built at the birthplace of Hindu Lord Ram.
Kalyan Singh, who later quit the BJP and broke ranks with the Samajwadi Party earlier this month, told reporters here that he was in no doubt that a grand Ram temple would come up at the site where the mosque stood.
“It will be a temple, a temple, a temple,” he said, repeating the word thrice to lay emphasis.
“In the Liberhan Commission there is a stench of politics,” he said, and added that the nearly 1,000-word report was “politically motivated”.
He denied the charge levelled by M.S. Liberhan that there was a conspiracy to bring down the mosque.
“I say there was no deep conspiracy and there was no advance planning to break the structure. Dec 6 was an explosion.”
At the same time, Kalyan Singh sought the cooperation of the Muslim community in the building of the Ram temple at the site in Ayodhya, about 700 km from here.
“There will be peace in the country (once the temple comes up),” he said. “This source of tension will end.”
He said indefinitely postponing the construction of the Ram temple “will not benefit the Hindus or the Muslims or the country”.
“The earlier the temple is built it will be good for the nation,” he said. “The (Babri) mosque can never come up there.”
“I have no regrets,” he added, referring to the mosque destruction. “The Ram temple has to come up, the structure (mosque) had to go.”
Kalyan Singh also said he was ready to face any case filed against him by the central government in the wake of his indictment in the Liberhan Commission.
Speaking of his plans to go to Ayodhya in the coming days, Kalyan Singh said the time had come for “a new political mission”.
He expressed indignation over the indictment of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the Liberhan report.