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(A special CBI court will pronounce its judgment in the decades-old Babri Masjid demolition case on 30 September, in which former deputy prime minister LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Kalyan Singh and Uma Bharti are among the 32 accused. In light of this development, we are republishing this article and video from The Quint's archives, which was originally published on 7 December, 2017.)
When activist and documentary filmmaker Ruchira Gupta saw the first dome of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya come down just after noon on 6 December 1992, she knew she had to go inside the dispute site.
At 24, Gupta was reporting for Business India from Ayodhya. Many journalists thought the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal cadre would only perform a ‘symbolic’ kar seva at the disputed site they believed was the ‘Ram Janmabhoomi’. Gupta had to go see for herself what was happening on the ground instead of relying on secondary sources.
Recalling the series of events that followed, in which she was sexually assaulted, at a talk organised by The Wire on the 25th anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Gupta said she had to speak up.
“I decided to walk inside the middle door. I was wearing jeans and a loose shirt, and I put a wet handkerchief on my head and walked inside. The dome was very crowded. They were shouting, wearing orange bands on their heads and waists, and some even had pickaxes. They were in a frenzy,” recalls Gupta.
“And while I was split seconds away from death, I could not even get words out of my mouth to say who I was. Strangers’ hands were reaching out and poking my breasts, pinching my waist, trying to touch every private part of mine while I was dying. And I was thinking, ‘If I have to die, does it have to be this way?’” she recalls.
“One person said, ‘Let’s not kill her inside, let’s take her to the trench outside.’ Perhaps they wanted to do more sexually, because they pulled me out of the mosque.”
Gupta says she went straight to Lal Krishna Advani, who, along with other BJP leaders, was present on the terrace of a house that offered a clear view of what was going on outside.
Gupta finally got help from a woman constable who escorted her to a car. “I drove straight to Delhi, but I was determined to testify in the Bahari Tribunal, the Liberhan Commission of Inquiry, the Press Council,” she recalls.
“So, I told them, the shame was not mine. The shame was theirs, because they were the perpetrators and he was the leader of the perpetrators,” she says.
But, the intimidation did not end even after her testimony was recorded.
“They tried to damage my credibility as a human being. When they could not do that, they actually began to stalk me, instil fear in me; they vandalised my car, they used to write, ‘F*** you’ on my article and leave it around, and I would find it. They would follow me from one office to the other in Connaught Place in Delhi; they would stand outside my home, they would call me and breathe heavily into the phone. But, I still didn’t get intimidated because once I took a stand and spoke up, actually, I got rid of the fear,” says Gupta.
Video Editor: Mohd Irshad Alam and Vivek Gupta
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