By TARAN DEOL
New Delhi: The Meerut Police have launched an investigation into a Hindu leader who purportedly called for an economic and social boycott of Muslims, at a gathering in the Chaudhary Charan Singh University Sunday.
In a video circulated online, Swami Anand Swaroop, a Hindu leader and the president of Varanasi-based outfit Shankaracharya Parishad, can be heard saying, “One who reads the Quran becomes a beast, they are no longer human. For those who wish to remain connected to India, they must give up the Quran and namaz. If we start boycotting Muslims socially and economically, they will embrace Hinduism.”
He added, “We want an army of one crore Hindu youth. We don’t need swayamsevak, we need a swayam-sena now. Pick up swords, guns or whatever you have, war has been declared and it will go on till we have a Hindu rashtra.”
The video was shared by a Twitter user named Md Asif Khan Monday. The Meerut Police Tuesday night said the matter was being investigated by its cyber cell and necessary action will be taken.
ThePrint reached Meerut Police Senior Superintendent of Police Ajay Kumar Sahni via text messages and phone calls but did not receive a response till the time of publishing this report.
Bengaluru-based Swaroop took to Twitter Wednesday morning and said he was not “afraid of death and action”. His tweet included a screenshot of a news report on the controversial speech.
Previous remarks
This is not the first time that Swaroop has made Islamophobic remarks. His Twitter timeline shows similar tweets and also retweets calling Muslims and other non-Hindu practitioners ‘demons’.
He has also shared a video discussion on a book titled Understanding Mohammad in which he can be heard saying that Islam incites riots. He goes on to show his support towards the Uttar Pradesh government’s anti-conversion law in the clip.
According to his Twitter bio, Swaroop is also the president of the Shankaracharya Trust and the Ganga Mission. The Shankaracharya Parishad’s official website states that it is a subsidiary organisation of the Shankaracharya Trust, “which is reaching in the middle of the society globally, with the mission of reconstruction of ancient India”.
This story first appeared on theprint.in