Kalyan, BJP leaders held guilty in Liberhan report

 

New Delhi, November 24 (agencies): The Justice M S Liberhan commission report has not recommended punitive action against anyone for the demolition of the Babri Masjid and calls for a new law to punish people using religion for political ends. The commission indicts 68 people for the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992 in Ayodhya, Law Minister Veerappa Moily told CNN-IBN after the report was tabled before Parliament on Tuesday.
Kalyan Singh, who was the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh during the mosque’s demolition, has come for the harshest criticism in the report. He is accused of posting bureaucrats and police officers who would stay silent during the mosque’s demolition in Ayodhya. Indicting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Uttar Pradesh then, the one-man commission said in its report: “Kalyan Singh’s government was the essential component needed by the Sangh Parivar for its purposes. Kalyan Singh lived up the expectations of the Parivar”. The commission’s report says Singh and his Cabinet allowed the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to directly run his government. The statement government had “systematically and in a pre-planned manner removed inconvenient bureaucrats from positions of power, dismantled and diluted the security apparatus and infrastructure, lied consistently to the high court and the Supreme Court of India and to the people of India to evade constitutional governance and thus betrayed the confidence of the electorate”.
“The chief minister and his cabinet were the proverbial insiders who caused the collapse of the entire system.” Singh allegedly maintained a “studied silence” even at the height of the crisis in December 1992 and “refused to allow even a single measure which might impede the Ayodhya campaign or prevent the assault on the disputed structures, the journalists or the innocent people”. He allegedly did not direct the police “to use force or resort to firing to chase away the miscreants or to save the lives of those wretched innocents...” though he was alerted that the Babri Masjid had been demolished and rioters were attacking Muslims in Ayodhya. “The wanton violence against human life and property continued unabated and even at that late stage, the chief minister did not use the central forces which could have been swiftly deployed,” the report states.
“Pseudo-moderates”
Uma Bharti, Govindacharya, Kalyan Singh and Shanker Singh Vaghela--all of whom were with the BJP then--are held primarily responsible for the destruction of the mosque and the report says that they could have prevented the assault. Senior BJP leaders Atal Behari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi are called “pseudo-moderates”. The report holds them intellectually and ideologically responsible for the mosque’s destruction. The report says that they gave false assurances to court, people and the nation. Vajpayee, Prime Minister in the BJP-led National Democratic Government, was not present on December 6 when the mosque was brought down, but the report says it cannot be assumed that Vajpayee, Advani and didn’t know of the designs of the Sangh Parivar Justice Liberhan has almost given a clean chit to the 1992 Central government and then Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao.
Liberhan report tabled
The Liberhan Commission of Inquiry report was tabled by Home Minister P Chidambaram in the Lok Sabha at 12 noon. 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. The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members had stalled both the houses of the parliament Monday over the leak of the report to the media and had asked the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to table the report into the demolition the Babri Masjid.

 

New Delhi, November 24 (Agencies): The Liberhan Commission Report on the Babri mosque demolition has been tabled after 17 years in Parliament. Discussion on the report will be taken up in both Houses on December 1. Home Minister P Chidambaram tabled the report along with the government’s Action Taken Report (ATR), and the question now: will there be any punitive action based on the report?
The Liberhan Report holds 68 people, including former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, responsible for “bringing the country to the brink of communal discord.” The government’s ATR does not recommend any punitive action against these 68 persons, in fact, it doesn’t single any of them out. The Law Minister says the Liberhan Commission was a fact-finding commission and has told NDTV to expect follow-up action based on the commission’s conclusions.
The ATR also says the government is contemplating a bill to check communal violence. The Liberhan Commission calls for a special separate law providing for punishment for misusing religion to acquire political power. Apart from the general recommendations, the ATR makes note of the commission’s suggestions on civil services, riot control, intelligence agencies, Centre-state relations, religious and cultural sites and the Press and lists action take on these.
On Tuesday morning, there were unruly scenes in the Rajya Sabha immediately after the home minister tabled the report. BJP leaders raised slogans, members rushed into the well of the House. There was a scuffle between BJP and Samajwadi Party members and the Upper House was adjourned.
The fact that the media had access to the report before it was shared in Parliament led to the entire Opposition uniting to declare this was a breach of protocol. The Home Minister said that there are two copies of the report, one is with the government, and that nobody in his Ministry leaked the Liberhan Report to the press. The report describes the demolition as “a tailor-made exercise” fuelled and executed by the BJP. The report slams the then UP Chief Minister Kalyan Singh in particular, accusing him of lulling his administration into “ineffectiveness” till the demolition was completed.