Judge: BJP member Islamophobic statement responsible for India chaos
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The Supreme Court of India on Friday ruled that the BJP spokeswoman should "apologize to the country" for her insulting and racist remarks against Prophet Mohammad.
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Judge for the Indian Supreme Court, Surya Kant.
The Supreme Court of India on Friday ruled that BJP spokeswoman Nupur Sharma should "apologize to the country" for her insulting and racist remarks against Prophet Mohammad on national television. Sharma has recently been suspended from the party over her remarks.
The court said, she “is single-handedly responsible for what is happening in the country” and that “she must apologize to the country.”
Justice Surya Kant, who was presiding over a two-judge vacation bench, weighed in: “She has threat or she has become security threat? The way she has ignited emotions across the country… this lady is single-handedly responsible for what is happening in the country,” Kant asserted.
Maninder Singh, a senior advocate who was defending Sharma by saying she is receiving life threats, also argued that his client had written an apology already. In response to that, Kant said that it was "too late."
“We saw the debate on how she was incited. But the way she said all this and later says she is a lawyer, it is shameful… She should have gone to the TV and apologized to the nation”, the judge said.
Kant was not having it: "The petition smacks of her arrogance, that the Magistrates of the country are too small for her.
“What if she is the spokesperson of a party. She thinks she has back-up power and (can) make any statement without respect to the law of the land?"
Muslims have recently taken to the streets across the country to protest anti-Islamic remarks made by members of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Many in India’s Muslim community see the remarks as the latest example of oppresion exercised by the BJP on matters of freedom of worship or wearing hijab.
