Bengaluru: In an event held at Karnataka’s Mandya district, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader C.T.Ravi has purportedly threatened to “cut off” the heads of those who dared to challenge the Hindus.
Addressing a large crowd Wednesday in communally tense region of Maddur, about 100 km from Bengaluru, Ravi’s speech was received with applause.
“We were born here. You were born elsewhere and have come here. Don’t try to slap your thighs in front of us. We will break your thighs and cut off your heads also,” the BJP’s former national general secretary in charge of Tamil Nadu said at a rally.
Later, an FIR was filed by Maddur Police against the BJP MLC for for delivering a “provocative speech” during Ganpati immersion program. The complaint states that while addressing participants of the procession through a microphone, Ravi made remarks targeting the Muslim community that were capable of inciting communal hatred among communities.
Ravi was among the BJP leaders who carried out a procession in Maddur where communal tensions have been on the simmer since Sunday night.
Miscreants had pelted stones on a Ganesha idol immersion when it passed in front of the mosque, leading to retaliation and escalating tensions in Karnataka’s Mandya district.
Since then, at least 21 people have been arrested in connection with Sunday night’s incident and the commotion that has followed since then.
Several BJP leaders, including Leader of the Opposition R.Ashoka, state president B.Y.Vijayendra and several others made their way to Maddur Wednesday to take part in the procession. They were accompanied by crowds, sporting saffron shawls, chanting slogans including ‘Jai Shri Ram’.
BJP leaders have accused the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government of emboldening anti-social elements with its appeasement politics.
The Shivamogga police have also launched an investigation into a viral video in which some people are heard raising ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogans during an Eid Milad procession. The video is purportedly from 8 September and shows a bunch of youngsters raising what sounds like pro-Pakistan slogans near Bhadhavathi’s Gandhi circle.
Ravi also mocked Congress legislator Sangmesh, who had said that he would like to be born a Muslim in the next life.
Ravi said that there was no concept of afterlife in Islam and that the Congress legislator from Bhadhravathi in Shivamogga should convert right now.
Islam was born 1,400 years ago but Hinduism is over tens of thousands of years old, he said. “We (Hindus) were born here. You (Muslims) were born elsewhere and have come here,” he said, adding that Hindus will not sit back too long.
He claimed that the Hindus had not spared Tipu Sultan or his father Hyder Ali, hinting that the same fate awaited those who provoked the community.
There is growing clamour that the Srirangapatna’s Jumma Masjid (Masjid-E-Ala) was a temple that was forcibly converted into a mosque by Tipu Sultan. Last January, the village of Keragodu in the same district had turned into a fortress after Hindutva groups protested against the state government’s decision to deny permission to hoist a saffron or religious flag near the bus stand.
Last year, there were communal clashes in Nagamangala during the Ganesha Chaturthi celebrations.
(Edited by Tony Rai)