New Delhi: A meeting of the parliamentary standing committee on home affairs on Tuesday (August 25) to discuss the alleged use of pellet guns and police action on students and youth protesters at Jantar Mantar last month saw heated exchanges between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and opposition parties, who insisted that the matter should be taken up as part of the agenda as it had grabbed the national attention.Congress MP Ajay Maken raised the issue during the meeting, the agenda for which was to discuss the views of various ministries on the subject of ‘Crimes Against Children’ during the July 20 ‘Sansad Chalo’ march, The Tribune reported.The issue raised included the alleged use of pellet guns, lathicharge and delay in registration of an FIR in a pellet injury case. Maken, along with Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had written to the committee’s chairman, BJP MP Radha Mohan Das Agrawal, on August 5 seeking suspension of the notified business to allow a discussion on the issue. The Congress MPs pointed out that those injured during the protest included students and minors, making it relevant to the committee’s mandate. Azad Samaj Party MP Chandrashekhar Azad also raised the alleged lathicharge on students in Meerut.However, committee chairman Radha Mohan Das Agarwal did not allow it, noting that the matter was subjudice, per the report.As opposition members including Congress members, Shiv Sena-UBT’s Sanjay Raut, Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Sanjay Yadav and IUML’s Haris Beeran continued their demand for a discussion on the issue, BJP MP Tarun Chugh said that if issues outside the agenda were being raised, he wanted to discuss the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.The exchanges soon spiralled into a confrontation as Congress MP Jai Prakash countered him by raising the alleged atrocities in Haryana under the BJP regime. However, the chairman soon stepped in. According to an Economic Times report, Chugh’s comments were seen as a reference to Congress MP Deepender Singh Hooda’s remarks mourning former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar, convicted in the 1984 riots, whom he described as a “loss to the country’s political landscape”.Per the report, the chairman declined the opposition’s request stating the Supreme Court’s decision to constitute a five-member panel headed by retired SC judge R. Subhash Reddy to probe allegations of police excesses and violence during the protests. He added that the committee would take up a discussion on Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) on the use of force on protesters at a later date. Following his remarks, tempers cooled down and the panel resumed its scheduled business, that is, it heard presentations from officials of the Ministry of Labour and Employment; the Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education; the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment; and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on the subject of crimes against children.The meeting that began at 11 AM ultimately went on till 4 PM.