New Delhi, Nov 24 (IANS) Bureaucrats and police officers in Uttar Pradesh remained “deaf, dumb and blind” in the run up to the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the Liberhan Commission has said in its report.
“The could have at least attempted to stem the tide of communalism and the rape of democracy. But they chose to remain deaf, dumb and blind throughout and instead became a willing part of the cartel,” Justice M.S. Liberhan has said in his voluminous 1,000-page report on the demolition.

“The police and the bureaucrats of the state not just turned a blind eye to the misadventures of the polity but actively connived and curried favour with the chief minister and the Sangh Parivar by systematically paralysing the state machinery. Their sins are highlighted by their being rewarded with plum postings after the demolition as well as tickets for contesting elections,” the report said.

The one-man panel that has held several bureaucrats individually culpable for the demolition and for promoting communal discord said “the police and the administration were the executors of the designs of the RSS, VHP, BJP, Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena etc”.

In the conclusion chapter of the report, Liberhan has said that the “decay and erosion in the values of the civil service were all too apparent in Uttar Pradesh in the years leading up to 1992″.

“I have no hesitation in holding that they became a part and parcel of the political parties governing at a particular point of time…”