LUCKNOW - Indian police said Friday they were investigating a regional political leader who reportedly justified the massacre at France’s satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and called for the attackers to be rewarded.
Police have registered a preliminary criminal case against Haji Yakub Qureshi, a former government minister in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, for inciting communal hatred. “Based on newspaper reports, we have lodged an FIR (first information report) against Qureshi under Section 505 of the Indian Penal Code,” Meerut city police chief Om Prakash told AFP. “We are probing the case and will take action as per the laid out law,” he said. Qureshi, a Muslim leader of the regional Bahujan Samaj Party, was reported on Thursday as saying that those who lampooned the Prophet (PBUH) “deserve” and “invite death”.
But Qureshi has denied telling media that he was willing to pay out 500 million rupees ($8 million) to the fugitive gunmen as a reward for carrying out the attacks.
“I have not made any such announcement regarding the attack in Paris,” he told the Press Trust of India news agency. “They say hijab can’t be worn by Muslim girls. So it will have some kind of impact on the Muslims,” said Mani Shankar Aiyar.
“The unity in diversity that has been practised in India is one lesson the West hasn’t learnt,” he was quoted as saying by the DNA English daily.