Securitymen outside the outer fence of the makeshift temple after the attack. File picture

Ayodhya, July 4: A year after the abortive suicide attack on the Ayodhya temple, the trial of the accused is not getting anywhere because there is no one to argue their case.

Five persons were arrested last year on charges of supplying weapons and SIM card and offering shelter to the five suicide bombers who were killed in the attack on July 5, 2005.

They had stormed the complex housing the makeshift Ram temple, but were gunned down before they could reach the sanctum sanctorum.

The Faizabad Bar Association adopted a resolution that its members would not defend the accused. “We thought helping the accused persons in the case would amount to betraying the nation. We still stick to this,” said Amarnath Mishra, an advocate in Faizabad court where the trial is being held.

Last month, an advocate from Kashmir, where two of the accused were arrested, arrived to fight the case but had to leave after some local lawyers allegedly manhandled him.

The legal battle has thus got stuck in the routine production of the accused from Naini Jail in Allahabad, where they are being held, and their return.

As a way out, the district administration is thinking of shifting the trial to a neighbouring district.

If the trial is on hold, so is the elaborate security cover planned for the disputed site. The Centre has yet to get approval from the Supreme Court for erecting a bullet-proof wall. It moved the application yesterday.

“It was the duty of the central government to approach the Supreme Court to get clearance for a permanent structure at the sanctum sanctorum,” director-general of police Bua Singh said.

The Centre’s petition in the Supreme Court says an air-conditioned bullet-proof steel structure (with a wooden roof) is needed to protect the idol of Ram Lalla against such attacks.

Security wall protest

The All-India Muslim Personal Law Board has opposed the plan to build the bullet-proof structure.

Zafaryab Jilani, a board member and Babri Masjid Action Committee convener, said security should be tightened but no construction should be allowed at the disputed site. Steel walls could not be called a temporary structure, he said.

Another member, Maulana Khalid Rashid Firangimahali, said the board could oppose the Centre’s application in the Supreme Court. “It amounts to implementing the RSS agenda by the UPA government,” he said of the application.

The matter would be discussed at the board’s general body meeting scheduled in Chennai from August 25.