Hindu nationalist lawmakers in India caused uproar in parliament on Monday after accusations they had orchestrated the razing of a mosque that led to bloody religious riots 17 years ago. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members repeatedly shouted down the speaker over newspaper claims that an official inquiry into the Babri Mosque's demolition "indicted" the party's leaders.
The Indian Express newspaper also claimed the probe, which will be published shortly, concluded that the 1992 attack on the Muslim shrine by hordes of Hindu zealots was "meticulously planned." Home Minister P. Chidambaram said that the report should not be judged until it was published finally later in the current parliamentary session.
"There is only one copy of the Liberhan Commission report with the home ministry and it is in safe custody and no one has spoken to any journalist about it," he said, as opposition protests forced the house to adjourn. The Express said the probe "indicted" Atal Behari Vajpayee -- a former BJP prime minister who is widely respected as a moderate Hindu nationalist - and L.K. Advani, the current hardline leader who was then deputy premier.
Advani travelled across India in 1990 to draw support for his campaign to install a temple on the site of the Babri mosque in the Hindu pilgrimage town of Ayodhya in northern Uttar Pradesh state. On Monday 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." Congress party spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi accused BJP leaders of clapping with joy as they watched Hindu rioters tear down the mosque "and then shedding crocodile tears about sadness."
Devout Hindus believe the mosque was built on the ruins of a temple marking the birthplace of the Hindu warrior Lord Ram. The mosque's demolition triggered some of the worst Hindu-Muslim violence since the partition of the Indian sub-continent in 1947, with more than 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, left dead.