|
New Delhi: Both Houses of Parliament were adjourned yesterday following noisy scenes over the death sentence given to Mohammad Afzal, convicted for his part in the terrorist attack on Parliament House on December 13, 2001.
While the Rajya Sabha was adjourned for the day, the Lok Sabha was adjourned till 2pm.
In the Lok Sabha, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena demanded that Afzal's death sentence be executed without delay, the Samajwadi Party protested what they termed the highhandedness of Maharashtra's Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) government in arresting party MP Abu Asim Azmi.
Samajwadi Party MPs alleged the state government had tried to suppress a rally protesting against the killing of Dalits (backward classes) as well as the Malegaon blasts and arrested their colleague Azmi.
As the house met on the second day of its winter session, Speaker Somnath Chatterjee called Babulal Marandi, who recently won the by-election in Koderma in Jharkhand as an Independent, to take oath.
As this got over, Samajwadi Party members ran near the speaker's podium, shouting slogans against the Congress. The Shiv Sena and BJP were also out of their seats demanding Afzal's hanging.
The Telugu Desam Party members were seen holding a placard asking that the livelihood of millions of beedi workers in Andhra Pradesh be protected.
After repeated pleas from the Speaker asking MPs to go to their seats had no effect, he adjourned the house till 2pm.
Earlier, the House was adjourned at 11.05am for 10 minutes on the same issues.
|
