Felix the Cat
03-06-2006, 04:31 AM
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=75158&version=1&template_id=40&parent_id=22
NEW DELHI: Opposition members of parliament yesterday protested over US security personnel taking sniffer dogs to check the safety of a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi ahead of a visit there by President George W Bush.
The MPs waved copies of newspapers in the Lok Sabha (lower house) that reported the incident on Thursday and demanded an apology from the Indian government.
“The UPA (Congress-led United Progressive Alliance) government has lowered national prestige and should apologise to the nation,” shouted Rajiv Ranjan Singh, an opposition MP.
The members said the Rajghat memorial complex is a sacred site and that dogs should not have been allowed there, media reports said.
When previous VIPs have visited the site, security forces have checked the area with deep-penetrating mine sweepers, the Press Trust of India said, adding this was the first time dogs had been allowed so close to the memorial.
Staff at the memorial were upset when US security personnel took sniffer dogs on the pathway around the memorial twice early Thursday, the agency reported.
Kirpa Parmar of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said the presence of sniffer dogs at a “holy place” like Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial was an “assault on the dignity of the nation”.
Samajwadi Party members, who support Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government, agreed.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist viewed the issue rather differently. “Our problem is not the dogs but Bush entering there,” said the party’s Dipankar Mukherjee, a staunch US hater.
Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Suresh Pachauri recalled a murderous assault in the late 1980s on then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi by a man who was hiding on a tree at Rajghat and said the authorities could not afford to leave anything to chance.
“It was merely a security check” and the MPs were reading too much into it, he said.
Walking barefoot as a mark of respect, Bush and US First Lady Laura Bush visited the landscaped memorial that houses a black marble platform erected at the site where Gandhi’s funeral took place in January 1948 following his assassination by a Hindu zealot.
The president and the first lady laid a wreath at the memorial and threw petals before holding talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Bush, who left for Pakistan late yesterday, wrote in the visitor’s book at the memorial that Gandhi was “an inspiration to the world.” – Agencies
NEW DELHI: Opposition members of parliament yesterday protested over US security personnel taking sniffer dogs to check the safety of a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi ahead of a visit there by President George W Bush.
The MPs waved copies of newspapers in the Lok Sabha (lower house) that reported the incident on Thursday and demanded an apology from the Indian government.
“The UPA (Congress-led United Progressive Alliance) government has lowered national prestige and should apologise to the nation,” shouted Rajiv Ranjan Singh, an opposition MP.
The members said the Rajghat memorial complex is a sacred site and that dogs should not have been allowed there, media reports said.
When previous VIPs have visited the site, security forces have checked the area with deep-penetrating mine sweepers, the Press Trust of India said, adding this was the first time dogs had been allowed so close to the memorial.
Staff at the memorial were upset when US security personnel took sniffer dogs on the pathway around the memorial twice early Thursday, the agency reported.
Kirpa Parmar of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said the presence of sniffer dogs at a “holy place” like Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial was an “assault on the dignity of the nation”.
Samajwadi Party members, who support Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government, agreed.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist viewed the issue rather differently. “Our problem is not the dogs but Bush entering there,” said the party’s Dipankar Mukherjee, a staunch US hater.
Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Suresh Pachauri recalled a murderous assault in the late 1980s on then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi by a man who was hiding on a tree at Rajghat and said the authorities could not afford to leave anything to chance.
“It was merely a security check” and the MPs were reading too much into it, he said.
Walking barefoot as a mark of respect, Bush and US First Lady Laura Bush visited the landscaped memorial that houses a black marble platform erected at the site where Gandhi’s funeral took place in January 1948 following his assassination by a Hindu zealot.
The president and the first lady laid a wreath at the memorial and threw petals before holding talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Bush, who left for Pakistan late yesterday, wrote in the visitor’s book at the memorial that Gandhi was “an inspiration to the world.” – Agencies