WHEN A DOME FELL

He remembers the day well. Ayodhya was swarming with kar sewaks and the air resounded with chants and slogans. But his father was not unduly troubled by their presence. They had gathered in Ayodhya in 1990 and on other occasions as well and those days had passed off peacefully. So my father thought nothing would happen this time too. But as a precaution,he shifted us to a friends house. My uncle and he were supposed to join us at night, he remembers.

Instead,their bodies were found the next day. Shahid found little time to grieve. Being the eldest of the siblings,he had to take charge. His father used to run Gaffar Wooden Works in Ayodhya a wholesale dealer,supplying wood,Shahid saysbut everything was destroyed when their house was burnt on December 6,1992. You cant save wood in a fire, he says. My father had a credit card and had spent

Rs 50,000 from that. So,I had to return that money first, he says.

With the Rs 20-lakh compensation that he got from the government,he got his house repaired and began work. My father used to get wood from all parts of the country. First,I got the sawmill that my father had installed at our house working. My fathers customersHindus and Muslimshelped us a lot, he says.

But when the state government imposed a ban on sawmills across UP,he could not get his licence renewed. And so,Gaffar Wooden Works became Rashid Furniture Work and the brothers now make furniture and are out of the wholesale business. To supplement their income,they also bought two autos.

In the intervening 17 years,Shahid married,got his four sisters married and is now trying to find a match for his younger brother. He also keeps in touch with his uncles family who moved to Gonda after the attack.

The Liberhan Commission Report,that comes 17 years after the demolition,hasnt moved Shahid. The only new thing in this report is the fact that the Commission took so long to get to the truth. Everybody knows what happened in Ayodhya 17 years ago. This is all politics, he says.

Politics is something Shahid understands now. Since 1992,his family has voted for the Samajwadi Party. So it came as a shock to them when Mulayam Singh Yadav joined hands with Kalyan Singh,under whose chief ministership the Babri was demolished. I realised then that all politicians have the same face, he says.

So in the Last Lok Sabha elections,Shahids family abandoned the SP,voting instead for the Congress and for the Peace Party,a newly formed political front in UP that claims to work for Muslims. They wanted me to be the nagar president of their party but I refused, says Shahid.

The Liberhan report has brought back memories of those days. The worst thing that happened because of it was that we had to quit studies. I was in college then,my brother Rashid was in high school and my other two brothers were in school. None of us could continue our education. I am the only matriculate in my family, he says.

But hes trying to ensure that his child gets what he could not. His 3-year-old daughter,Noor Fatima,goes to a convent school in Faizabad.

92: The men who were in control

p v narasimha rao

prime minister

Ayodhya 6 December 1992 was released in 2006 after the death of Narasimha Rao,Indias first PM to head a single-party minority government and one reputed to speak at least six languages fluently. But his felicity with language could not help him explain his actions on the Babri Mosque issue. In his book, Rao maintains that his hands were bound by the Constitution and he could not have dismissed the BJP state government. He says he was misled by the Kalyan Singh government but his critics say the intelligence was either lax or ignored. Most importantly,the National Integration Council meeting held on November 23,1992,unanimously approved a four-line resolution moved by CPMs HKS Surjeet,to extend its whole-hearted support and cooperation in whatever steps the PM considers essential in upholding the Constitution and the rule of law and in implementing the Court orders. This,his critics say,was ignored and he allowed the mosque to be demolished. The Liberhan Report,however,despite examining him twice,does not hold him responsible. Naresh Chandra,who was in the PMO then,too defends his former boss. Mr Rao made a very concerted effort8230;Its a canard that he slept at the time.

s b chavan

home minister

Shankarrao Bhaurao Chavan has served twice as CM of Maharashtra but is best known as the Home Minister at the Centre when the Babri Masjid was demolished. He was perhaps not as active in the negotiations but by Raos own admission,was in touch with the UP state government and spoke to the UP DGP at 2.25 p.m. well after the first dome had been pulled down 8220;informing him of sending back of the force by the local administration and requested him to issue necessary instructions for the use of force. However,the most sensational quote of the time was what Chavan gave to now-MP Rajiv Shukla on his TV show when he said that,on finding out about the trouble in Ayodhya that morning,I went to the PMs house. He was watching TV. I too started watching,and in that time,the demolition was complete. Later in the afternoon,the PM went to his room to rest,he is said to have added.

madhav godbole

home secretary

Pune-based Madhav Godbole was the good chap of the pack,say his contemporaries and juniors. Godbole submitted his resignation in March 1993,shortly after the blasts that rocked Mumbai. He went on to write the first of his many books,Unfinished Innings,where he spoke of the great damage to Indiaboth when the mosque was brought down in 1992 and when the bombs went off in 1993. Indicating a clear division in the Rao government on the approach to the Babri issue vis-a-vis the handling of the Kalyan Singh government,he admitted,We had prepared a contingency plan in the Home Ministry and we had prepared reports to persuade the government to dismiss the UP government.

s rajagopal

cabinet secretary

He doesnt find a mention in the PMs account of the time and neither is he mentioned in the Liberhan Report. This 1957-batch IAS officer of the Maharashtra cadre became Power Secretary in 1988 and was appointed Cabinet Secretary late in 1992. By all available accounts,he did not have much of a role to play in negotiations that were held just before the Babri Masjid was brought down.

kalyan singh

chief minister,uttar pradesh

Though the Supreme Court had allowed token kar sewa in front of the disputed structure,Singh was supposed to take immediate measures to limit the crowd at Ayodhya and to rush central paramilitary forces. Singh,however,directed against the deployment of central forcesthey finally reached 36 hours after the mosque was demolished. According to the Liberhan Report,Kalyan Singh maintained a studied silence even at the height of the crisis in December 1992 and refused to allow even a single measure which might impede the Ayodhya campaign or prevent the assault on the disputed structures8230; Hours after the mosque was demolished,Singh submitted his resignation. An hour later,the Centre dismissed his government and imposed Presidents Rule.

SVM Tripathi

DGP,Uttar Pradesh

A 1961 batch IPS officer,Tripathi became Uttar Pradeshs DGP in 1991. As the DGP,it was his responsibility to brief the DIG and the SSP on how to deal with the 5 lakh kar sewaks assembled in Ayodhya by the evening of December 5. But the DGP Headquarters issued no specific instructions when the first group of about 150 kar sewaks reached the top of the Babri tomb and no efforts were made to bring the kar sewaks down from the domes. In his defence,Tripathi says,To fire on lakhs of people was not feasible.

But I do regret that the demolition took place during my tenure. Tripathi went on deputation to Delhi on December 22,taking charge as the Director General

of CRPF,retiring in 1996.

a k saran

Inspector general,Lucknow zone

A 1967 batch IPS officer who retired in 2002,Saran was supposed to be present in

Faizabad,leading the force but he is said to have done little.

The Liberhan Commission report says: It was well known and an open secret that

Saran was close to the BJP leadership and was pliable even to the local leadership…. He deliberately visited Ayodhya just once despitethe gravity of the situation.

uma shanker bajpai

dig,faizabad

Bajpai,who retired in 1995,was supposed to ensure heavy police deployment but he was not on the spot and is said to have made no efforts to mobilise the

police force.

d b rai

ssp,faizabad

Said to be close to senior politicians in the state,the Liberhan Report says he was even more strongly devoted to the BJP than Saran and the Hindu Maha Sabha,which was anti-Muslim. He reportedly spent all his time making arrangements for the BJP leaders instead of beefing up security. He resigned from the police in 1995 and contested and won the Lok Sabha elections from Sultanpur. He died in February 2009.

akhilesh mehrotra

sp,faizabad

The Liberhan Report says of Mehrotra that he did not hesitate to8230;put forward incredible,blatantly unbelievable stories like,that there was a firing from the house of a Muslim on the 6th of December.

He was suspended for his alleged role in the police recruitment scam in 2007. His suspension,however,was revoked in 2008,the year he retired.

R N Srivastava

district magistrate,faizabad

Of the many officers indicted by the Liberhan Commission,Srivastava is the only bureaucrat who is currently facing prosecution in a special court CBI on charges of criminal conspiracy and creating enmity between two communities. He was suspended after the demolition of the mosque. Srivastava,however,says,Even if the higher authorities had ordered us to use the option of police firing,it was impossible. It would have resulted in massacre. I could not have acted like General Dyer at Jallianwala Bagh.

v k saxena

chief secretary,uttar pradesh

This low profile IAS officer was elevated to the post of chief secretary by chief minister Kalyan Singh. A pliable officer known for carrying out the fiats of politicians,Saxena was certainly no obstacle in the way of a state government intent on pursuing its agenda in Ayodhya.

prabhat kumar

principal secretary,home

Kalyan Singh was against the deployment of central paramilitary forces and officers say Kumar implemented his wishes. A 1963 batch IAS officer,Kumar became cabinet secretary in 1998 during the NDA rule at the Centre. He later became Governor of Jharkhand but resigned in Feb 2002,following a controversy when businessman Ashok Chaturvedi alleged that Kumar had accepted his hospitality.

Seema Chishti, Bhupendra Pandey and Virendranath Bhatt