Babri Commission indicts top Atal, Advani

New Delhi, Nov 23 (PTI) Top Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) leaders including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L K Advani and
Murli Manohar Joshi have reportedly been indicted by a
Commission of Inquiry which was set up 17 years ago to probe
the demolition of Babri Masjid.
A newspaper report about the findings of the
Commission, headed by Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan,
triggered an uproar in Indian Parliament with both the Houses
adjourned after BJP members attacked the government over the
"leakage".
The voluminous report, which was submitted to the
government about five months ago, is believed to have called
the BJP leaders "pseudo-moderates" holding that Advani and
Vajpayee cannot be absolved of their responsibility in the
demolition of the disputed structure in Ayodhya in India's
northern state of Uttar Pradesh on December 6, 1992.
The Commission is understood to have said that
Vajpayee, Advani and Joshi could have been used by the Sangh
Parivar as publicly acceptable faces of the movement and were
still party to all decisions.
It said none of them had the capacity to defy the
orders of the Rashtriya Seva Sangh (RSS) without damaging
their political future and called them tools in the hands of
the RSS.
The Commission is not not believed to have criticised
the late Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao saying as per
Constitution the Indian Government can act only after it
receives the recommendations of the state Governor. (MORE) PTI