This implied that there was another structure, presumably a temple, under the Babri Masjid, and gave rise to considerable consternation among the secularist academic groups.
Secondly, after the demolition of Babri Masjid by the Vishva Hindu Parishad and allied groups in 1992, a number of figures and artifacts were discovered in the debris, which formed the basis for a booklet by Y. D. Sharma et al.[2] Mandal's book was a critique of these two pieces of evidence.
[3] In May 2003, the Sunni Central Waqf Board—which rejected that the Babri Masjid used to be at the site of a Hindu temple—pleaded before the Allahabad High Court for allowing Mandal, Shereen Ratnagar, Suraj Bhan, and Sita Ram Roy to examine the excavation conducted by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) at the then-demolished mosque; the request was promptly granted.
[4] This, however, brought the umbrage of the Court which held their public discussion of sub-judice matters—involving in-camera submissions like the ASI report and depositions by other witnesses—as contemptuous.
[4][5][7] Notwithstanding unconditional apologies on their part and the publisher withdrawing all unsold copies, they were subsequently ordered to submit token fines in what scholars have since characterized as judicial attempts to mediate as well as circumscribe the usual norms of academic debates.