NEW DELHI, May 30 (Xinhua) -- A special court in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh's capital Lucknow Tuesday charged senior figures in the country's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with criminal conspiracy over the destruction of a 16th century mosque.
The BJP leaders who were charged with conspiracy in the case by the court of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) included the party's former chief and India's former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, Indian Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti and former Minister Murli Manohar Joshi.
Though they argued against the framing of charges against them, denying making inflammatory speeches that encouraged Hindu mobs to tear down the Babri mosque in the state's Ayodhya town in 1992, the court rejected their discharge petition.
The court will now start trial against the senior BJP leaders in the case and will wrap it up within two years, as ordered by India's Supreme Court last month.
Earlier in the day, Indian Water Resources Minister denied any wrongdoing. "I don't consider myself an accused... There was no conspiracy, it was an open movement like it happened against the Emergency," she told the media.
The BJP has backed its leaders. "We are sure that our leaders are innocent and will come out unscathed," Indian Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu said in the national capital.
The communal riots that followed after the demolition of the mosque killed nearly 2,000 people, mostly minority Muslims. The CBI has always said that the destruction of the mosque was a planned event by Hindu fundamentalist groups.
Hindus claim the mosque was the birthplace of one of their most revered deities, Lord Ram, and that it was built after the destruction of a Hindu temple by a Muslim invader in the 16th Century.
The Supreme Court has been hearing the case since 2011 after setting aside a Allahabad High Court's 2010 judgement which allocated two-thirds of the disputed site to Hindu groups, and the remainder to Muslims.
The 2010 ruling of the High Court addressed three major issues. It said the disputed spot was Lord Ram's birthplace, that the mosque had been built after the demolition of a temple and that it was not built in accordance with the tenets of Islam.
