Saraswati himself attended some of these controversial events. Many recent flashpoints in the national capital region, including the shouting of anti-Muslim slogans in Jantar Mantar in August, have been traced to Hindutva activists who have identified as his followers or acknowledged being influenced by his speeches. Relatively unknown outside Ghaziabad till recently, he is now frequently in the news for repeatedly calling for a “final war against Muslims”. Links with BJP?Ī former engineer by profession, 53-year-old Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, the head priest of Dasna Devi temple, is now seen as one of the shrillest voices in the Hindutva ecosystem in western Uttar Pradesh. Then chillingly, Choudhary asserted his support for Saraswati in a startling sentence: “Hum unke saath tan, man, dhan aur gun se hain.” We support him with our body, heart, wealth and weapons, he said. He clearly says that you do not disturb us and we will not disturb you.” Choudhary did not go alone: he gathered at least a hundred other men who use the gym that he runs in Loni, a town within Ghaziabad district, about 30 km away from the temple, and drove them in cars. Among those who rushed to the temple to stand in solidarity with the priest was Choudhary, an active worker of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Ghaziabad since 2011. This triggered a mobilisation in support of Saraswati. An MLA of the Bahujan Samaj Party Aslam Chaudhary said it was unfair to bar Muslims from entering the temple, and described its head priest Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati as a “goon”. By the time Choudhary watched it, there was a raging controversy over the incident. The incident, captured on video, had taken place on March 11 outside the Dasna Devi Temple in Ghaziabad district, Uttar Pradesh, 37 km from Delhi.įirst uploaded on Instagram by a handle called Hindu Ekta Sangh, the video had spread over social media.
The man then goes on to brutally assault him. The boy, who responds with a Muslim name, says he had gone to the temple to drink water. In the video, a man interrogates a teenage boy, asking him to spell out his name, his father’s name, and explain why he had entered a temple. On a sweltering afternoon in March, 35-year-old Naveen Choudhary received a video on WhatsApp. Railways changes saffron uniform of staff after seers object to it.Watch: Man builds Taj Mahal-like home for wife in Burhanpur, Madhya Pradesh.I looked closely at two famous portraits of Tipu Sultan – and found that one isn’t actually of him.Watch: Cricketer Shreyas Iyer stuns teammate Mohammed Siraj with slick card trick.
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