The BJP has tweeted a video of a firing incident in Ayodhya from 1990. The BJP tweeted the nearly three-minute video clip projecting the incident as a "calculated warning" of the then Samajwadi Party government, helmed by Mulayam Singh Yadav. In the backdrop of BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani's rath yatra, kar sevaks were mobilised and the Uttar Pradesh police fired at the mob, killing 17 people.
The video tweeted by the BJP details how senior LK Advani, who was spearheading the 'Ram Rath Yatra', was arrested on October 23, 1990, in Bihar on the orders of then Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav. Advani's 10,000 km rath yatra across India resulted in communal riots, killing over 2000 people.
The yatra, which began in Somnath on September 25, 1990, traversed through hundreds of villages and towns and was scheduled to reach Ayodhya.
Babri Masjid, built in 1528 by Mir Baqi, commander of Mughal emperor Babur, was demolished by kar sevaks belonging to Hindu majoritarian outfits on December 6, 1992.
A legal fight ensued in 1950 when Gopal Visharad Sharma approached the Faizabad district court for the right to worship idols of Ram Lalla, which were placed there in 1949. On September 30, 2010, the High Court, in a 2:1 majority, ruled a three-way division of the disputed area between the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara, and Ram Lalla.
Nine years later, the Supreme Court granted the entire 2.77 acres of disputed land to deity Ram Lalla and directed the Uttar Pradesh government to allot five acres of land to Muslims for building a mosque. Though the Supreme Court referred to the mosque’s demolition as “an egregious violation of the rule of law”, the verdict was criticised for accepting the logic of “faith over fact” and granting legal possession of land to those responsible for the demolition.