Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: In a sensational claim, Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav alleged on Monday that the then president Shankar Dayal Sharma was aware of the fact that Babri Masjid would be demolished on December 06, 1992.
Addressing a public function here, Mulayam said that they had conveyed the plan to the then president, when he along with his partymen had met him to seek his intervention in stopping the impending act.
"On December 4, 1992, there was a meeting held to discuss the situation after the decision to demolish the masjid in Ayodhya was taken by BJP and its supporters. It was decided to see the President and seek his intervention. Shankar Dayal Sharma was the President then," Yadav said.
"We gave him a letter. We told him the masjid would be brought down. Shankar Dayal Sharma read the letter and discussed with us. He looked around here and there and then he told us that hope you will not tell anyone. Then he said the masjid will certainly be brought down. Shankar Dayal Sharma said this," Yadav added.
He said he tried a lot to talk to the government at the time but no one listened and on December 6, 1992, the masjid was razed.
The SP leader claimed he was also later dissuaded from writing a book on this issue after he had even written a few pages. "I was dissuaded...I was told a lot of leaders would be uncovered...," he revealed.
Shankar Dayal Sharma was the ninth President of India and served from 1992 to 1997. He passed away in 1999.
The Babri Masjid Mosque was demolished on 6 December 1992. On 16 December 1992, the union home ministry set up the Liberhan Commission to investigate the destruction of the mosque. The commission, which was headed by retired High Court Judge MS Liberhan, submitted its 1,029-page report to PM Manmohan Singh on June 30, 2009.
Earlier, Union Minister Beni Prasad Verma had on April 16 accused SP chief of conniving with LK Advani in the run up to the demolition of of Babri Masjid.
Verma had said that Advani started a rath yatra stating that shilanyas was to be performed at the disputed structure on October 30, 1990.
"The intention was not to perform shilanyas but to demolish the disputed structure in connivance with the then CM (Yadav)," he had told reporters in Lucknow.
Suggesting the police firing in Ayodhya in November 1990 when Yadav was the Chief Minister was unnecessary, Verma had claimed that Yadav later visited the guest house where Advani, Vinay Katiyar and others were under detention.
At the meeting, he claimed, it was decided that karsewaks would be permitted to perform darshan (at the disputed site).
With PTI inputs
