Mumbai, June 25 (IANS) Former Union Minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ravi Shankar Prasad, on Wednesday, claimed that during the Emergency, the Constitution was strangled by making many amendments and asked “will the Congress leaders apologise for turning the entire country into a prison and torturing Opposition activists during the Emergency, and for atrocities on the common people by forcibly performing sterilisation surgeries?”

He was speaking at the press conference here to mark the completion of 50 years of the Emergency.

“During the Emergency, one-and-a-half lakh people were arrested across the country. All the leaders of the major opposition parties like the Jan Sangh and socialist leaders were arrested. Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan was arrested and kept in jail in Haryana. Morarji Desai was also kept in the same jail. However, permission to meet these two leaders was denied. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh volunteers and Jan Sangh workers were physically tortured in jail,” he claimed.

Referring to the atrocities committed during the Emergency, BJP leader Prasad said that of the 253 journalists, 110 were arrested under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act and 110 under the Protection of Information Act while 33 were arrested under other serious offences.

Many senior journalists were also arrested, he added.

The accreditation of 52 foreign journalists was cancelled and 29 foreign journalists, including renowned journalist Mark Tully, were banned from entering India. Pre-censorship was imposed on newspapers, he said.

“Government officials were given the target of sterilisation and 60 lakh people were forcibly sterilised. Many were sterilised even though they were not married,” he alleged.

He also said that Congress leaders have not apologised for this atrocity till date.

–IANS

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