New Delhi, Dec 6 (IANS): A large number of Indians believe that the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1991 strained the relations between Hindus and Muslims across the country, as per an IANS-CVoter snap poll.

This was revealed by a nationwide poll with a sample size of 1942 conducted using random sampling on December 5, 2021.

As many as 98.1 per cent of the respondents said that the incident damaged the relations between the two communities. However, while 59.3 per cent of these respondents further opined that the relations between the communities that had got damaged because of the incident is being healed with time, 38.8 per cent stated that the Hindu-Muslim relations were permanently damaged and divide continues to exits even 30 years after the Babri demolition. Only 1.9 per cent of those who participated in the survey said that the incident did not damage Hindu Muslim relations in the country.

A clear manifestation of the impact of the Babri demolition on the Hindu-Muslim relations was widespread communal riots that took place in the aftermath of the incident. Religious hatred had engulfed the nation and communal riots in different states claimed more than 1,000 lives.

However, in the past few years, the number of serious communal riots has gone down and respondents in the same survey were equally divided on the reasons for the dip in communal violence in the country. While 30.8 per cent of the respondents said that exemplary punishment to rioters by the judiciary is the main reason for the reduced number of communal riots, 36.5 per cent of those, who participated in the survey said that cooler heads from both communities calming down inflamed passions is the prime reason for ebbing the communal violence and 32.7 per cent opined better law and order maintenance by police has brought down the occurrence of such horrific incidents