New Delhi: In the wake of protests against extremist Hindutva leader Yati Narsinghanand’s provocative remarks against Islamic prophet Muhammad, at least two Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs have tried to add fuel to the fire through their warnings to the Muslim protestors.

One of them, Nand Kishor Gurjar, even advocated that the Muslim protestors who allegedly marched towards Narsinghanand’s temple in Dasna, Ghaziabad on Friday, October 4, and “attacked” it, be shot dead in an “encounter.” The Uttar Pradesh police have dismissed reports of any such attack on the temple and threatened action against rumour mongering.

The other BJP MLA Shalabh Mani Tripathi threatened protestors that they would get a “taste of Israel” if they tried raising frenzied slogans in UP. “Here, treatment will be given through the constitution of Babasaheb and not the Sharia, and that too a proper one… don’t cry then,”said Tripathi on October 6 in a post on X.

The latest controversy regarding Narsinghanand, who runs a temple in Ghaziabad, was triggered after clips of his derogatory remarks against Prophet Mohammad were widely shared on social media. Narsinghanand made the comments inciting people to burn the Prophet’s effigies at an event in Ghaziabad on September 29.

FIRs

Multiple police complaints have been lodged against Narsinghanand in several states, including UP, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra and Telangana. In Hyderabad, where an FIR was lodged against Narsinghanand on the complaint of the AIMIM, the party’s president and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi said he had even requested the Commissioner of Police, Hyderabad to issue a notice to social media platforms to remove the “hate speech.”

Multiple Muslim organisations, outraged by Narsinghanand’s insults, have demanded action against him and approached police in their........

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