RSS chief unveils sanyasi throwing brick-shaped bombs at masjid

“Here the imagination of journalists takes flight. They converted an explosion into a blast and the blast was converted into a bomb shell and it was all put into my mouth,” he added.

As for Deshpande’s subsequent contradiction of “some of what I had said quoting her”, Sudarshan said he agreed with her that “the entire structure did not fall because of the blast”. This is because there were also the kar sevaks who with their hammers had “chipped away the plaster”.

Adding a new dimension to the bomb controversy, Sudarshan said that only yesterday he had received information that what destroyed the monument were “brick-shaped bombs and brick-shaped dynamites and detonators”.

He said this information came from Kunwar Dharam Veer Singh Rawal, national president of a registered political party called the Federation of Sabhas. Rawal said in a letter that he knew of a Congress member called Anees Ahmad Gahlaut who “boasted always” that he had blown the Babri Masjid because Babar had built it “against Quranic laws”. But this Gahlaut apparently died in 1997.

That did not deter Sudarshan from quoting Rawal’s letter which in turn quoted the late Gahlaut as saying: “I got some bombs built in the shape of pooja bricks” and “I was clad in saffron as a sanyasi and had the brick bombs on my person in plastic covers which I tore when I used them”.

Gahlaut was also quoted saying that before blasting the bombs, “I gave a loud cry, êIDoor hato, Bomb phat raha hai.êR (Get back, a bomb is going off) Yet many were injured when stones were pelted by the blast. I fled from there for fear of being arrested. I was myself hurt in the leg.”

Sudarshan urged the commission to “give consideration” to his information about Gahlaut and, if need be, even summon Rawal for further details.

He reiterated his widely-reported allegation that the “kitchen cabinet” of P.V. Narasimha Rao was involved in the explosions. But it turned out that this allegation was also based on hearsay: He said his source was a Maharashtra Congress leader who allowed him to make the information public without naming him.

At the end of the day’s proceedings, senior advocate O.P. Sharma suggested to the Commission that Sudarshan should be directed to limit himself to only “what he can personally vouch for” as hearsay information would be of no use to the inquiry. Liberhan said he had no power to stop a witness from saying anything he wished to say. Sudarshan’s deposition will resume on February 6.