Chandigarh, July 31 (IANS) Twentyeight Congress workers, including two former mayors of this city, were acquitted by a local court Saturday in an over 13-year-old case of manhandling government employees.

Those acquitted include former mayors Subhash Chawla and Pardeep Chhabra and Congress leader Devinder Singh Babla.

They were accused of allegedly disrupting a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) house meeting May 25, 1997 and manhandling government officials.

According to the police complaint, the accused barged into a room where the BJP meeting was taking place, disrupted the proceedings and mandhandled government employees present there.

Former deputy commissioner of Chandigarh R.K. Rao was the complainant in the case. In 1997, he was serving as assistant commissioner of the municipal corporation.

'My clients were innocent. Police had failed to record the statements of the eye-witnesses and they could not produce even a single independent witness or proof before the court, leading to this acquittal,' said defence counsel here Saturday.