As per the latest reports, a demand has emerged for constructing a memorial paying tribute to those Karsevaks who had lost their lives in the Ayodhya firing incident. This demand was put forward in a letter to chief minister Yogi Adityanath. The Uttar Pradesh chief minister had visited Saint Jagatguru Purshottamacharya who has not been keeping well lately. Chief Minister Adityanath met the saint and asked about his well-being. The meeting lasted for 20 minutes during which saint Jagatguru mentioned the Ayodhya firing incident that took place on November 2, 1990, and also submitted a letter requesting the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister for the construction of a memorial in the remembrance of those who had been martyred in police firing.
This seems like a legitimate demand. The way saints had been killed in the cold-blooded incident was enough to shake the conscience of the society in general and the Hindu community in particular. On that fateful day, a group of Karsevaks had assembled in the city of Ayodhya. They were protesting peacefully for the construction of the Ram temple. They were well within their rights to stage a peaceful protest. However, the then chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav ordered the police to open fire on these karsevaks on October 30, 1990. The consequent firing incident resulted in the painful death of 16 karsevaks. Till date, no one, including the pseudo-secular cabal, is able to give a cogent and reasonable justification of this brutal firing incident. The protesting karsevaks did not seem to pose a threat to the law and order situation as such and even if there was a risk of rising tempers, there are several other ways of controlling protests. But taking away lives of innocent ordinary citizens without any fault of theirs is appalling and indefensible.
Not only this, Mulayam Singh Yadav even went on to justify his actions rubbing salt on the injuries of the families of those who lost their lives in the highly condemnable incident. Only last year, Mulayam Singh unabashedly justified his orders and even went on to say, “If more people were required to be killed for the country’s unity and integrity, the security forces would have done it.” In yet another insensitive remark about the incident in 2016, the then SP supremo had stated that he had taken the action (orders to open fire on karsevaks), as it was necessary to uphold “Muslim community’s faith” and to preserve the “unity of the country”. It is clear that those karsevaks had to lose their lives at the altar of minority appeasement. While the unity of the country was a mere pretext, the real intention was to appease a particular community.
However, one can only hope that those who took away the lives of innocent karsevaks for wooing the voters of a particular community should not go scot free. They must be brought to justice for their dastardly acts. In fact, a plea was filed before the apex court last year seeking the registration of an FIR against Mulayam Singh Yadav over the 1990 firing incident.
The karsevaks who died protesting for a cause must not be forgotten. The fact that they sacrificed their lives for a special cause gives them a special place in our recent past. They were protesting for a demand that concerns the Hindu community deeply on a very sensitive issue. The fact that they were met with gross injustice and violation of their basic rights must now be corrected by paying a fitting tribute to them. In this backdrop, the demand for a memorial seems totally legitimate.