Sena leader Khaire gets summons in Babri case

With the Shiv Sena party chief Uddhav Thackeray, his family and hundreds of Sena leaders and workers gathered in Ayodhya, the situation in Maharashtra too is tense. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court has issued summons to Chandrakant Khaire, Sena leader in the 1992 Babri Masjid case.

CBI had charged Pawankumar Pandey and other karsevaks in the case and Khaire had been taken into custody from the spot as a witness.

The case, which was filed in 1993, is coming up for hearing on November 28 in a Lucknow court. Khaire has been summoned for this hearing. “I will be going for the November 28, hearing in Lucknow,” said Khaire.

The Sena party chief and his entire family have gone to Ayodhya. Summons to other Sena leaders and karsevaks will be issued. Sena founder and chief Bal Thackeray was proud of how his Sainiks had razed the Babri mosque on December 6, 1992. He had always praised the karsevaks, even as the former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had shed tears over the demolition of Babri Masjid.

Just before Uddhav left for Ayodhya, Sanjay Raut, the Sena spokesperson and MP, had gloated about their achievement and reminded Bharatiya Janata Party of its pending promise to construct a Ram temple on the disputed site. “The Babri mosque was demolished in 17 minutes (in 1992) so why is it taking so long to draft a law or promulgate an ordinance on the Ram temple,” Raut had asked reporters on Friday.