It was saddest day of my life as not only a mosque was demolished but the secular edifice of India was torn apart says Qurban Ali who witnessed the demolition of historical Babri Masjid
I was witness to the horrific and unfortunate act in Ayodhya on December 6 1992. At that time I was working for Sunday Observer and also contributing to the BBC language services as a stringer.
About 10 or 10.30 in the morning the so-called Kar Sevaks stormed into the Babri Masjid, their mentors were none other then LK Advani,Murli Manohar Joshi,Ashok Singhal,Uma Bharti, Sadhvi Ritambhara etc.
At 11.20AM they demolished the first dome of the Babri Masjid and I along with Mark Tully, the then BBC bureau Chief of South Asia, Gillian Wright and Ramdutt Tripathi rushed to the Telegraph office in Faizabad as Mark had to file his report.In those days there were no mobile phones and even public phone booths were a luxury.
After filing his report Mark Tully and I, along with the then resident editor of daily, Jagran in Lucknow, Vinod Shukla and his wife moved towards Ayodhya from Faizabad with the para-military forces but were stopped at a railway crossing between Ayodhya and Faizabad.Then Vinod Shukla suggested another way of going to Ayodhya from the cantonment side and we some how managed to reach the backyard of Babri Masjid at 1.00PM, where demolition was going on in full swing.But as soon we got out of the car, we were attacked by Kar Sewakas and taken to a nearby temple where we were held hostage till 7pm when demolition was completed.
Later on we were rescued by the Mahant of Badi Haveli/Mandir with the help of Saral Gyapte, Local correspondent of Daily Jagran in Ayodhya and reached Hotel Shan-e-Awadh Faizabad around 8PM from where I was interviewed by BBC Urdu service and broke the news of the demolition.
At that time our official media, AIR and Doordarshan were incorrectly reporting that ‘Ayodhya mein vivadaspad dhaancheiy ko nuqsaan pahuncha hai’. This was the saddest day of my life as not only a mosque was demolished but the secular edifice of India was torn apart.
Qurba Ali is a senior journalist..