New Delhi: Jarnail Singh, the journalist from Dainik Jagran who threw a shoe at Home Minister P Chidambaram during a briefing at the Congress office in New Delhi on Tuesday, has been released. But here is a look at how it happened.
Responding to Jarnail Singh's questions, the Home minister said neither the Home Ministry nor any the government had put pressure on the CBI in the Tytler case.
But as the Singh persisted with his questions, Chidambaram told him "no arguments, you are using this forum" at which point the journalist hurled his shoe.
As he was being taken out by the security personnel, Jarnail said, "Whatever I did, the method was wrong. But I did for a right cause."
Chidambaram later said he forgave the shoe-thrower. Jarnail Singh has been let off by the police because Chidambaram has told them not to take action against him.
<b>Who is Jarnail Singh:</b>
Jarnail is a defence journalist for Dainik Jagran and has been on this subject for about six years now. He is known to be a quiet man, which is why his colleagues in the media are surprised at his act. Apparently, he was angry with Chidambaram's response to his question on the CBI's clean chit to Congress leader Jagdish Tytler in the anti-Sikh riots case.
Meanwhile, Jarnail's wife Gurmeet Kaur has said that he is not a hot headed person.
"One can never be sure of a person's state of mind. I don't think he should have reacted this way. He apologised for this act. It is very difficult for human beings to control their anger sometime. He is not so hot headed normally," Gurmeet said.
However, opposition party BJP has strongly condemned this act.
"We condemn this incident. There is no place for these incidents in a democracy. The Congress should know there is anger in the Sikh community," BJP spokesperson Siddarth Nath Singh said in New Delhi.
<b>Previous shoe-throwing incident:</b>
<li>February 2009: Protestor throws show at Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at Cambridge University.
<li>2008: Iraqi journalist Muntadher al-Zaidi threw his shoes at George Bush. He was sentenced to three years in jail for his crime.