Afzal issue rocks House, LS, RS adjourned

As soon as the House met for the day, BJP and SS members shouted slogans demanding hanging of Afzal.

Both houses of parliament were adjourned on Thursday following noisy scenes over the death sentence given to Mohammed Afzal, convicted for his part in the terrorist attack on Parliament House, on December 13, 2001.

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While the Rajya Sabha was adjourned for the day, the Lok Sabha was adjourned till 2 pm.

In the Lok Sabha, even as 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 the killing of Dalits 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.

The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) members were seen holding a placard asking that the livelihood of millions of bidi 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 2 pm.

Earlier, the house was adjourned at 11.05 am for 10 minutes on the same issues.

In the legislative business listed for Thursday are the Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial Amendment Bill and Essential Commodities Amendment Bill.

BJP and Shiv Sena members raised the Afzal issue in the Rajya Sabha too, forcing two adjournments of the house. When the pandemonium continued, the house was adjourned for the day.