Seventeen years after the demolition of the Babri Masjid that polarised the country along communal lines, the report of the Liberhan Commission of Inquiry was on Tuesday tabled in parliament amid turmoil, slogan shouting and even scuffles between MPs of various parties.
Seventeen years after the demolition of the Babri Masjid that polarised the country along communal lines, the report of the Liberhan Commission of Inquiry was on Tuesday tabled in parliament amid turmoil, slogan shouting and even scuffles between MPs of various parties.
The report was first tabled in the Lok Sabha and then in the Rajya Sabha, which had to be adjourned as fisticuffs broke out between members of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), whose senior leaders like LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi have been indicted.
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As the home minister read out a statement tabling the report in the upper house, BJP MPs broke out into cries of Jai Shri Ram. This appeared to anger SP general secretary Amar Singh, who got up and advanced menacingly toward BJP's SS Ahluwalia and objected to the slogans.
The SP leader tried to push Ahluwalia away, but was in turn violently pushed back. This led to other members joining in the scuffle.
To calm down the agitated members, Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) Prthiviraj Chavan ran towards them but could not defuse the situation.
As the din continued, Deputy Chairman K Rahman Khan adjourned the house till 2 pm. This was the third adjournment of the house since morning.
Following the unseemly scenes, Amar Singh told reporters outside parliament: "I am ready to apologise to Ahluwalia. I didn't want to manhandle him but he raised slogans that had the potential of dividing the house along communal lines."
There was some unrest in the Lok Sabha too when Chidambaram tabled the report amid slogan shouting from the opposition benches.
"I am tabling the report along with the Action Taken Report," he said, as BJP MPs stood up to protest, demanding that the contents of the report should be discussed in parliament.
However, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar managed to calm the slogan shouting members.
The house then continued to hold other businesses that were scheduled.
The decision to table the report was taken following an emergency meeting of the cabinet earlier in the day. The meeting was chaired by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in the absence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who is in the US.
The BJP had stalled both the houses of the parliament Monday over the leak of the report to the media and asked the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to table the report into the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
However, the copy of the report was not distributed in the house. But it will be uploaded in the ministry of home affairs website.
As the issue of the demolition of the 16th century mosque that was brought down by radical Hindu activists on Dec 6, 1992 on grounds that it was built on the birthplace of the Hindu god Ram came back to the national centrestage, Law Minister M Veerappa Moily said it was the "demolition of the secular fabric of the country".
Vajpayee, Thackeray, Advani in Liberhan's culpability list
The Liberhan Commission that probed the Babri Masjid demolition has held 68 people individually culpable for leading the country "to the brink of communal discord". The list includes former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, senior BJP leaders LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi as well as Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray.
Amongst the others in the list are then Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh, Vishwa Hindu Parishad leaders Ashok Singhal and Pravin Togadia, RSS chief KS Sudarshan as well as Govindacharya, the late Vijayaraje Scindia, Vinay Katiyar, Uma Bharti and Sadhvi Rithambara.
Bureaucrats have been named too, including AK Saran, inspector general (security) and chief secretary VK Saxena.
Kalyan Singh dubs Liberhan report a political conspiracy
Kalyan Singh, who was the Uttar Pradesh chief minister when the Babri mosque was razed, said he suspected a political conspiracy behind the Liberhan Commission of Inquiry that has severely indicted leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the demolition.
Kalyan Singh, who later quit the BJP and recently broke ranks with the Samajwadi Party, told reporters here that he was in no doubt that a grand Ram temple would be built on the site where the 16th century Babri mosque in Ayodhya was demolished on December 6, 1992.
"It will be a temple, a temple, a temple," he said, repeating the word thrice to lay emphasis.
"In the Liberhan Commission ? there is a stench of politics," he said, adding that the report was politically motivated.
He denied the charge levelled by Liberhan that there was a conspiracy to bring down the mosque.
"I say there was no deep conspiracy and there was no advance planning to break the structure. December 6 was an explosion."
At the same time, Kalyan Singh sought the cooperation of the Muslim community in the building of the Ram temple at the site in Ayodhya, about 700 km from here.
"There will be peace in the country (once the temple comes up)," he said. "This source of tension will end."
He said indefinitely postponing the construction of the Ram temple "will not benefit the Hindus or the Muslims or the country".
"The earlier the temple is built it will be good for the nation," he said. "The (Babri) mosque can never come up there."
Accused by the Liberhan Commission of inaction to prevent the destruction of the Babri mosque, he said he had told the police to use their canes or fire tear gas to disperse the hundreds of thousands of 'kar sevaks' who had gathered in Ayodhya on Dec 6, 1992.
"But I made it clear that there should be no firing on the kar sevaks," he said.
"If I had allowed firing, then thousands would have died and there would have been stampede and more would have died."
"The question before me was: who should I save? I prevented a massacre. The structure (mosque) went (in the process)."
"I have no regrets," he added, referring to the mosque destruction that sparked off one of the worst outbreaks of communal violence in the country.
"The Ram temple has to come up, the structure (mosque) had to go."
Govt accepts all recommendations made by Liberhan Commission
Government on Tuesday said it has accepted all the recommendations made by the Liberhan Commission in the backdrop of the Babri Masjid demolition and positive action would be taken on them.
"We have not rejected the recommendations. Each and every recommendation has been accepted and noted. The government is bound to take positive action," Law Minister Veerappa Moily said here. He said the government may go beyond recommendations and pick up from the conclusions also.
Asked what action Government was contemplating, Moily said, "It has already formulated the Action Taken report (ATR). The Liberhan Commission is a fact-finding mission and further to that each ministry is expected to take on that and take action."
"ATR is clearly indictment of 68 persons, who are responsible for all this episode. ATR also contains offences which one has collected. Government has to take positive action," he added.
The Law Minister said, "The country needs justice" as demolition of the disputed structure had eroded and done irreparable damage to the secular and democratic fabric of the country".
Mixing religion with politics dangerous: Liberhan
The Liberhan Commission that probed the Babri Masjid demolition on Tuesday came down heavily on mixing politics and religion and has recommended a law providing for exemplary punishment for such misuse to acquire political power.
The voluminous report of the Commission, which was submitted in June 17 years after it was set up under chairmanship of Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan, was tabled in both Houses of Parliament by Home Minister P Chidambaram.
The 13-page Action Taken Report (ATR), tabled by the Home Minister, said the government accepted the recommendation and is contemplating enactment of the Communal Violence Bill to prevent and control riots and setting up special courts to deal with them.
The ATR makes no reference to the indictment of top BJP leaders, including LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Kalyan Singh and leaders of various Sangh Parivar outfits made in the report.
The Commission was constituted ten days after the demolition of the disputed structure in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992. The Commission said the Constitutional scheme to separate religion from politics was intended to insulate issues of governance from those of theology.
The Commission said "while it may be useful and indeed desirable to import certain aspects of ethics and morality into the political arena, the use of religion, caste or regionalism is a regressive and dangerous trend capable of alienating people and dividing them into small sections."
Justice Liberhan said the events of December 6, 1992 and the many subsequent events have already shown to the nation the danger and the disruptive potential of allowing the inter-mixing of religion and politics. He said the extraneous interference in democratic affairs for acquiring political power through criminalisation of political office or mixing of political and religious affairs has become the order of the day.
"A separate law providing for exemplary punishment for misuse of religion, caste, etc. for political gains or illicit acquisition of political or other power ought to be enacted. "Regional tribunals for ensuring swift prosecution and effective implementation of the law ought to be set up in the four corners of the country," the report said.
The ATR said it accepted the recommendation and one of the measures contemplated is the Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims), which envisions the setting up of Special Courts.
As regards cases arising out of Babri Masjid demolition, the ATR refers to cases filed against eight accused and 47 other cases in a special court in Rae Bareli, and case against unknown kar sewaks. Steps will be taken to expedite the hearing of these cases, it said.
The ATR, however, rejected as not practical the recommendation of the Commission that the National Integration Council be conferred statutory powers and its members should be barred from holding any Constitutional office or Office of Profit or Public Office or from participation in any political activity.
The Commission suggested the desirability of establishing a Criminal Justice Commission which would comprehensively monitor the performance of all law enforcement agencies and apply corrective measure wherever needed. The government said Law Commission will be requested to study the desirability of establishing a Criminal Justice Commission.
Another recommendation made by the Commission relates to the need to deal firmly with the threat from communal violence. It said specialised investigating squads need to be formed under the state criminal investigation agencies and communal offences or crimes committed during riots should be vigorously investigated. Government should not be able to withdraw charges relating to communal riots, it said.
The ATR said the government accepted the recommendation and one of the measures in the Communal Violence Bill contemplates the setting up of special courts.
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