New Delhi - A Sikh journalist hurled a shoe at India's security minister during a press conference on Tuesday after getting angry at a reply to a question about the
1984 riots in which scores of Sikhs were killed.

There was high drama at the conference after the shoe missed Palaniappan Chidambaram, who deftly leaned back to avoid being hit.

"Please take him away," a smiling Chidambaram told security guards. "It doesn't matter."

The journalist, identified as Jarnail Singh, working with Hindi daily Dainik Jagran, was taken to a local police station.

Singh had got into a minor argument with Chidambaram on the circumstances that led to former minister Jagdish Tytler being exonerated by the Central Bureau of Investigation in connection with the riots.

There is anger in the Sikh community which believes that the Congress Party-led coalition government pressured the bureau to give Tytler a clean chit.

More than 3,000 Sikhs were killed by rioting mobs of Congress Party sympathizers after then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was shot by her Sikh bodyguards on October
31, 1984.

Tuesday's The incident was reminiscent of shoe attacks that have been used as a symbol of protest against leaders including former US President George W Bush and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. (dpa)