MUMBAI (Reuters) – Indian police detained a state lawmaker from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party on Tuesday on suspicion of “promoting enmity in the name of religion” after Muslim groups demanded his arrest for his comments about the Prophet Mohammad.
The detention of T. Raja Singh, a lawmaker in the southern state of Telangana, comes months after his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) suspended a spokesperson for her remarks on the prophet that had led to a diplomatic backlash against India.
“He has been charged with promoting enmity in the name of religion,” Joel Davis, a senior police official in Hyderabad city, told Reuters.
“We have detained him and we will arrest him. This about the recent video that he posted.”
In the video, available on social media, Singh, and in an apparent reference to the Muslim prophet, said an elderly man had married a girl decades his junior.
Singh could not be reached for comment.
The Hindu nationalist BJP would examine Singh’s remarks and take action if he was found to have violated its code, party spokesperson K Krishna Rao told the News18 channel.
Hundreds of Muslims protested against Singh on Monday evening after the video appeared on social media, footage from media showed.
(Reporting Shilpa Jamkhandikar in Mumbai; Additional reporting by Jatindra Dash in Bhubaneshwar; Editing by Robert Birsel)
