Officials within the western metropolis of Udaipur, Rajasthan state, introduced a curfew and blocked web entry after movies of the incident went viral on social media, triggering mass outrage throughout the nation.
In one video, two males may be seen starting to assault the sufferer. In one other, two Muslim males seem to admit to the crime and declare to have “decapitated” the Hindu man. However, police within the state advised CNN Wednesday the sufferer had deep cuts throughout his physique, together with slashes on his neck, however that he had not been beheaded.
The two suspects allegedly killed the sufferer, a tailor, after a publish appeared on his social media account in favor of the now suspended nationwide spokesperson for India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Nupur Sharma, who made derogatory feedback about Islam’s Prophet Mohammed, Rajasthan police official Hawa Singh Ghumaria advised CNN Wednesday.
The sufferer was arrested on June 12 for allegedly “inflaming non secular sentiments” and had since been launched on bail, Ghumaria mentioned.
The two suspects have been arrested and an investigation is underway, the state’s Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.
Authorities within the state have responded by deploying greater than 600 policemen to the realm.
“This incident could be very shameful,” Ghumaria mentioned throughout a information convention Tuesday, earlier than urging the general public to not watch the movies and interesting for calm.
“There might be pressure. There all the time is after such an incident, however it’s all underneath management,” he mentioned.
The killing has reignited the flames of an already risky scenario between India’s Hindu majority and its minority Muslim group, that make up about 14% of the nation’s 1.3 billion inhabitants.
Asaduddin Owaisi, a lawmaker and president of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen political social gathering, condemned the killing and demanded the “strictest potential motion” towards the suspects.
“There may be no justification for it,” he wrote on Twitter Tuesday. “Our social gathering’s constant stand is to oppose such violence. No one can take the regulation into their very own arms.”
Leader of the opposition Congress social gathering Rahul Gandhi mentioned he was “deeply shocked” by the incident.
“Brutality within the identify of faith can’t be tolerated,” he wrote on Twitter. “We have to come back collectively to defeat hatred. I enchantment to everybody to please keep peace and brotherhood.”
Hindu-Muslim tensions have remained a relentless all through India’s fashionable historical past, sometimes erupting into violence, however analysts and activists say relations have worsened since Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP rose to energy with a Hindu-nationalist agenda in 2014.
Since then, the ruling social gathering has been repeatedly accused by rights teams, activists and opposition events of stirring anti-Muslim sentiment.
The BJP mentioned in a press release on its web site earlier this month that the social gathering revered all religions. “The BJP strongly denounces insult of any non secular personalities of any faith,” it mentioned.
Earlier this month, India scrambled to comprise the diplomatic fallout as no less than 15 Muslim-majority nations condemned Sharma’s remarks in regards to the Prophet Mohammed. The incident sparked uproar amongst India’s key Arab buying and selling companions and calls from across the Gulf to boycott Indian items.
Protests over her feedback grew lethal in India after two Muslim boys have been killed in jap Jharkhand state this month, with an investigation underway to find out who fired the deadly bullets.The BJP suspended Sharma, and India’s Foreign Ministry issued a press release saying her feedback “don’t, in any method, replicate the views of the federal government of India.”