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Uma fails to recall if she gave call for demolition
: Union Sports Minister Uma Bharti today failed to recall if she had made the infamous slogan `Ek dhakka aur do, Babri masjid tod do` (give another blow and pull down the Babri Mosque) during demolition of the disputed structure at Ayodhya in 1992.
: Union Sports Minister Uma Bharti today failed to recall if she had made the infamous slogan "Ek dhakka aur do, Babri masjid tod do" (give another blow and pull down the Babri Mosque) during demolition of the disputed structure at Ayodhya in 1992.
"I do not remember" was the reply she gave when asked by the counsel for the Liberhan Commission, probing the sequence of events leading to demolition of the disputed structure on December six, 1992, if she had given this slogan while addressing the "Kar Sevaks" there minutes before the demolition.
Deposing before the panel, Bharti also said she did not remember calling former Prime Minister V P Singh and former UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav as "vampires". She was asked about this description by the commission's counsel Anupam Gupta who quoted an eye witness account in a book "Creating a Nationality".
Bharti said on the demolition day she was all the time taking the name of God and made an appeal to the people gathered around the structure not to go ahead with the demolition.
Asked if she knew of ransacking and burning of houses of large number of Muslims immediately after the demolition, she said "I have been reading them in newspapers". The Commission would further record her evidence on February nine, and rescheduled the dates for Union Home Minister L K Advani and HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi for March five, six and March 22 and 23 respectively. Bureau Report
Asked if she knew of ransacking and burning of houses of large number of Muslims immediately after the demolition, she said "I have been reading them in newspapers". The Commission would further record her evidence on February nine, and rescheduled the dates for Union Home Minister L K Advani and HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi for March five, six and March 22 and 23 respectively. Bureau Report