NEW DELHI, July 21: Police scoured the Indian capital on Wednesday to arrest the federal coal minister for his alleged involvement in a 1975 massacre, as bedlam erupted in parliament over the missing politician.

Sibu Soren was reported missing after a police team arrived here from his home state of Jharkhand with a warrant for his arrest in connection with the massacre in which 10 Muslims were killed.

"Mr Soren is neither home, nor in his office nor in parliament," said an officer from the Delhi police department, which is assisting Jharkhand state law enforcers in their hunt.

Police pasted the warrant on Mr Soren's home as part of a judicial drill that will lead to the politician being labelled a "proclaimed offender" if he does not surrender to a Jharkhand court which is trying massacre suspects.

Officials from his coal ministry as well as his home reported that Mr Soren and some of his close aides had not been seen since Saturday when the warrant was issued. The tribal politician has been accused of involvement in the murders in Jharkand during a campaign to boot out Muslim settlers who had left Bangladesh in 1971.

Mr Soren belongs to the regional Jharkhand Mukti Morcha party, which is a partner of the ruling Congress party. Mayhem broke out in parliament when opposition MPs accused the government of not speeding up the arrest of Mr Soren, who has spent time in prison on charges of accepting bribes to support a Congress party government during a no-trust vote in 1993.

"It is a matter of shame for our country that the police are running after Soren with an arrest warrant," Vijay Kumar Malhotra, a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, said in parliament's lower house.

The opposition forced an adjournment and staged a walkout when the prime minister did not offer an explanation on the issue. -AFP