Demolition of the Babri Masjid

Demolition of the Babri Masjid
Part of the Ayodhya dispute
19th–century photo of Babri Masjid
Ayodhya Ayodhya (India)
Location	Ayodhya, India
Date	6 December 1992; 31 years ago (1992-12-06)
Target	Babri Masjid
Attack type	Riots
Deaths	2,000 (including ensuing riots)[1]
Perpetrators	Vishva Hindu Parishad, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Shiv Sena, Bharatiya Janata Party and Bajrang Dal workers

The demolition of the Babri Masjid was carried out on 6 December 1992 by a large group of activists of the Vishva Hindu Parishad and allied organisations. The 16th-century Babri Masjid in the city of Ayodhya, in Uttar Pradesh, India, had been the subject of a lengthy socio-political dispute, and was targeted after a political rally organised by Hindu nationalist organisations turned violent.

In Hindu tradition, the city of Ayodhya is the birthplace of Rama. In the 16th century a Mughal commander, Mir Baqi, had built a mosque, known as the Babri Masjid at a site identified by some Hindus as Ram Janmabhoomi, or the birthplace of Rama. The Archaeological Survey of India states that the mosque was built on land where a non-Islamic structure had previously existed.^[2][3] In the 1980s, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) began a campaign for the construction of a temple dedicated to Rama at the site, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as its political voice. Several rallies and marches were held as a part of this movement, including the Ram Rath Yatra led by L. K. Advani.

On 6 December 1992 the VHP and the BJP organised a rally at the site involving 150,000 people. The rally turned violent, and the crowd overwhelmed security forces and tore down the mosque. A subsequent inquiry into the incident found 68 people responsible, including several leaders of the BJP and the VHP. The demolition resulted in several months of intercommunal rioting between India's Hindu and Muslim communities, causing the death of at least 2,000 people. Retaliatory violence against Hindus also occurred in Pakistan and Bangladesh.