Left Front leaders led a procession here on Sunday condemning the demolition of the Babri Masjid by activists of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party this day 17 years ago.
“The procession was a collective show of solidarity with those who were in favour of communal harmony and peace as opposed to the perpetrators of the attack on Babri Masjid that was aimed to divide the people of the country along communal lines,” said Rabin Deb, a senior CPI(M) leader in West Bengal.
Placards calling for safeguarding secular values and punishment of those indicted by the Liberhan Commission were carried aloft as the procession wound its way through the city streets.
Similar processions were also taken out by supporters of the Left parties in other parts of the State. Chairman of the Left Front Committee Biman Bose was at the forefront of a procession taken out in Jalpaiguri in north Bengal.
While coming down strongly on the BJP for its role in the demolition of the mosque and efforts to destroy secularism, Mr. Bose, who is also Secretary of the West Bengal State Committee of the CPI(M), also criticised the Trinamool Congress for remaining silent.
The Left Front leadership had recently expressed its dissatisfaction with the Commission report for giving a clean chit to the former Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao.
Mr. Rao had been forewarned by the then West Bengal Chief Minister, Jyoti Basu, of plans to attack the masjid, but had done little to protect the structure, the Left Front Committee observed.
