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Sudershan denies bomb blast theory

Josy Joseph in New Delhi

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief K S Sudershan has disowned the statement attributed to him that an explosion had destroyed the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992.

Sudershan, who appeared before the Justice M S Liberhan Commission on Wednesday, said noted Gandhian Nirmala Deshpande had quoted a senior Congress politician [reportedly, Arjun Singh] and stated that the mosque was destroyed by an explosion. He had merely repeated her statement, attributing it to her.

"However, later on she too denied this theory," Sudershan admitted to Justice Liberhan.

But journalists from a national newspaper misquoted him and first converted the explosion into a 'blast' and then a 'bomb blast', he claimed.

Sudershan handed over to the commission an audiocassette of the speech he had made in Trivandrum, where he had made the startling 'disclosure'. He also produced two clippings from a national newspaper from Madras and a Malayalam newspaper in which there was no mention of the bomb theory, unlike in other papers.

Interestingly, he made a new disclosure before the commission, saying a person named Kumar Dharam Veer Singh Rawal, 'national president of the Federation of Shahas', a nondescript political party from Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, had written a letter to him saying the Babri Masjid was destroyed by a bomb blast.

In the letter, Rawal said: 'Anees Ahmed Gehlot, an advocate who was murdered in 1997, had exploded bombs inside the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992.'

According to Rawal, Gehlot was an advocate and president of the 'Muslim Rajput Sabha' and a local leader of Ghaziabad. He had apparently been claiming in his meetings when alive that three small brick-shaped slabs of dynamite and detonators, with the words 'Shri Ram' written on them, were placed inside the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992.

Sudershan added that this was also the view of Bhim Singh, president of the Panthers Party.

EARLIER REPORT:
Sudershan appears before Liberhan Commission

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