Babri Masjid martyrdom anniversary

LUCKNOW: Security has been stepped up across Uttar Pradesh on Babri mosque martyrdom anniversary on Tuesday to check any untoward incident, official sources said here.

Besides sensitive locations in Ayodhya like the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri mosque, security has been tightened on ghats and temples in Varanasi and other vital installations across the state, they said.

Security agencies have also been directed to keep an eye on the movement of vehicles in districts bordering Nepal. Special arrangements have been made around jails, where terror accused are lodged, Additional Director General, Law and Order, Subesh Kumar Singh said.

Nineteen years go on the black day of December 6, 1992, the entire Indian Muslim community, the many helpless, impoverished and the few well to do Muslims, watched helplessly and in abject fear as the ancient Babri Masjid in Ayodhya was demolished, brick by brick by the extremist Hindus, egged on by their nationally known leaders.

At the same time throughout the wide expanse of India from Assam to Gujarat and from Kashmir to Kerala, ordinary Muslims were publicly humiliated in countless anti-Muslim riots. That day the brutal enemies of Indian Muslims openly taunted them with provocative slogans.

In countless cities in the nation the houses, shops, schools, businesses of Muslims were pillaged and burnt down to ground. Any Muslims in obvious Muslim dresses (tahmad, topi, beard, burqa etc) were waylaid and lynched publicly. For several weeks the lives of Muslims were cheap.