India’s police arrests Hindu religious leader for making a derogatory speech against Gandhi. A Hindu religious leader in India has been detained for reportedly giving a disrespectful statement about India’s freedom hero Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and applauding his killer.
Gandhi, known in India as a Mahatma (Great Soul), was assassinated in 1948 during a prayer meeting in the Indian capital by a Hindu hardliner.
During the partition of the Indian subcontinent by British colonialists into India and Pakistan in 1947, Hindu organizations accused Gandhi of being sympathetic to Muslims.
Kalicharan Maharaj was arrested on Thursday in central Madhya Pradesh for allegedly inciting religious hatred in a speech earlier this month, according to police officer Prashant Agrawal of the Press Trust of India news agency.
Maharaj reportedly added, “Gandhi wrecked the country… salutations to Nathuram Godse, who assassinated him,” according to media accounts.
India’s police arrests Hindu religious leader for making a derogatory speech against Gandhi
After the police have completed their investigation, he will be charged in court. He might face a five-year prison sentence if convicted.
The opposition is also calling for the arrest of many saffron-robed Hindu religious leaders who advocated for the genocide of minority Muslims at a closed-door religious parliament called Dharam Sansad earlier this month in Haridwar, India’s holiest city.
According to local media sources, at least one lawmaker from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) attended the meeting.
Police in the right-wing BJP-ruled state of Uttarakhand said they were investigating individuals, but no arrests had been made.
Hindu hardliners’ attacks on Muslims and other minorities have increased since Modi took power in 2014 and was re-elected by a landslide in 2019.
Muslims make up about 14% of India’s population of 1.4 billion people.
Meanwhile, a group of lawyers has addressed a letter to India’s Supreme Court Chief Justice, NV Ramana, requesting that he take action in response to the call for the extermination of Muslims.
At least two recent “events and remarks delivered… are not just hate speeches, but amount to an open call for the death of a whole community,” the lawyers wrote in their letter.
“The speakers’ comments constitute a significant threat not only to our country’s unity and integrity but also to the lives of millions of Muslim residents,” they stated.
Various student organizations staged a protest against the Haridwar hate gathering outside the Uttarakhand Bhavan office in New Delhi on Monday.
