Uproar over India mosque report

Uproar over India mosque report

The findings of an inquiry into the controversial destruction of a mosque by Hindu mobs that triggered bloody religious riots in the early 1990s has been tabled in the Indian parliament amid noisy disruptions from opposition members.

The cabinet approved the report in an emergency meeting earlier on Tuesday morning, India's NDTV reported, a day after the so-called Liberhan report was apparently leaked to a national newspaper.
The story, which appeared in the Indian Express newspaper, alleged the report "indicted" leaders from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), prompting angry scenes by party members in parliament on Monday and causing the house to adjourn.
P Chidambaram, the interior minister, tabled the 900-page report in both houses of parliament - Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha - amid unruly scenes.
The report indicts 68 people for the demolition of the mosque - mostly leaders from the BJP and a few bureaucrats.
Leaders indicted
Among those named are AB Vajpayee, the former BJP prime minister, and LK Advani, the party's current leader in parliament.
In the 1990s, Advani travelled across India to draw support for his campaign to install a temple on the site of the Babri mosque.
The 1992 destruction of the Babri mosque in the Hindu pilgrimage town of Ayodhya in northern Uttar Pradesh state sparked some of the worst Hindu-Muslim violence since the partition of the Indian sub-continent.
More than 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed.
Monday's Indian Express report claimed the Liberhan investigation concluded the mosque attack was "meticulously planned".
'Strong objection'
Advani accused India's ruling Congress party of deliberately leaking the inquiry's conclusions and protested his innocence.
"I take strong objection as to how the government has suddenly leaked the report," he told parliament, describing the mosque's destruction as "the saddest moment of my life".
Chidambaram denied the report had been leaked to the press.
Devout Hindus believe the Babri mosque was built on the ruins of a temple marking the birthplace of the Hindu warrior Lord Ram.
The report, authored by Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan, had been due to come before parliament in December, but the uproar over the paper's allegations prompted the cabinet to bring forward the date, the media said.
PHOTO CAPTION
Hindu youths atop the Babri Mosque five hours before the structure was completely demolished by hundreds supporting Hindu fundamentalist activists in December 1992.
Al-Jazeera.net

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