Uproar in India over mosque report

The findings on an inquiry into the controversial destruction of a mosque by Hindu mobs that triggered bloody religious riots in the early 1990s is set to be tabled in the Indian parliament, media reports say.

The cabinet approved the report in an emergency meeting on Tuesday morning, India's NDTV reported, a day after the so-called Liberhan report was apparently leaked to a national newspaper.

The Indian Express newspaper alleged that the investigation into the Babri Mosque's demolition "indicted" leaders from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The story prompted angry scenes by BJP members in parliament on Monday, causing the house to adjourn.

The report authored by Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan had been due to come before parliament in December, but the uproar over the paper's allegations prompted the cabinet to bring forward the date, the media said.

'Meticulously planned'

The 1992 destruction of the Babri mosque in the Hindu pilgrimage town of Ayodhya in northern Uttar Pradesh state sparked some of the worst Hindu-Muslim violence since the partition of the Indian sub-continent.

More than 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed.

The Indian Express report claimed the investigation concluded that the mosque attack was "meticulously planned".

It said the probe "indicted" Atal Behari Vajpayee, a former BJP prime minister who is widely respected as a moderate Hindu nationalist, and LK Advani, the party's current leader.

In the 1990s, Advani travelled across India to draw support for his campaign to install a temple on the site of the Babri mosque.

Leak denied

The opposition leader accused India's ruling Congress party of deliberately leaking the inquiry's conclusions and protested his innocence.

"I take strong objection as to how the government has suddenly leaked the report," he told parliament, describing the mosque's destruction as "the saddest moment of my life".

P Chidambaram, India's interior minister, denied the report had been leaked to the press.

"There is only one copy of the Liberhan Commission report with the home ministry and it is in safe custody and no one has spoken to any journalist about it," he said.

Devout Hindus believe the Babri mosque was built on the ruins of a temple marking the birthplace of the Hindu warrior Lord Ram.