By IANS
New Delhi : Both houses of the Indian parliament were adjourned Thursday as Left and other MPs staged noisy protests seeking punishment to those who razed the Babri mosque on this day 15 years ago.
An exasperated Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee adjourned business until 12 p.m. after failing to persuade the MPs – including from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress who were raising their voice on other issues – to calm down.
Similar noisy scenes in the Rajya Sabha led to a similar fate: adjournment until noon.
Even before the house met at 11 a.m., MPs from Left parties, the Samajwadi Party and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) gathered outside the main gate and shouted slogans demanding punishment to the demolishers of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya.
“Hang the murderers of democracy” and “Punish the guilty of Babri Masjid” read the banners in English and Urdu held by Samajwadi Party MPs who sat on the steps leading into parliament.
Later, inside the house, there was pandemonium as the slogan shouting of Left, Samajwadi Party and TDP MPs was countered by BJP MPs who sought to raise the issue of burnt bodies found in West Bengal’s troubled Nandigram area.
Congress MPs joined the din, demanding action against Gujarat Chief Minister Narenda Modi for virtually justifying the killing of a Muslim man in a fake gun battle that has led to the arrest of police officer.
Nothing was audible, except Ramji Suman’s (Samajwadi Party) screaming over the Babri mosque razing: “The guilty should be punished, the guilty should be punished.”
When Chatterjee failed to restore peace, he adjourned the Lok Sabha.
Thousands of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) activists demolished the Babri mosque Dec 6, 1992 claiming it stood at the birthplace of Hindu god Ram. The razing sparked one of the worst outbreaks of communal strife in India.