An Indian court has acquitted all 32 people accused over the 1992 attack and demolition of a 16th-century mosque that sparked Hindu-Muslim violence and left 2000 people dead.

Four senior leaders of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party were among the accused at the trial that has languished in India’s sluggish legal system for almost 28 years.

The four were accused of making inflammatory speeches that incited followers ahead of the attack at the Babri Masjid mosque in December 1992, but they insisted that the mosque’s demolition was spontaneous.

The verdict on Wednesday followed a ruling by India’s Supreme Court last year favouring the building of a Hindu temple on the disputed site of the former mosque in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh.