New Delhi: Suspended Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator from Telangana, T. Raja Singh, urged Hindu women not to become friends with “burqa-wearing women”, in a clear case of spreading hate against the Muslim community.Although the Telangana high court, which granted him conditional bail, directed him not to make inflammatory comments, he has continued to do so, spreading hate against the Muslim community on numerous occasions. He was booked and sent to jail for 75 days for his comments that were allegedly insulting towards Prophet Mohammed in August 2022.In his latest comments made in Telangana’s Adilabad town, he said, “Whoever has a tilak on his forehead is my brother and a Hindu. I will befriend only people who sport a tilak. And our women please do not become friends with burqa-wearing women. There was a time when we were under threat from Aftab, but now there is a threat from Ayesha as well. These are the Ayeshas who are introducing [Hindu] women to Aftabs.”The references to Aftabs and Ayeshas in his speech relate to the controversial film The Kerala Story, which claims that several Malayali women were forcibly converted to Islam and joined the terrorist group ISIS. While the claims made by the movie have been questioned, the BJP has used it to further the “love jihad” conspiracy theory. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to the movie during an election speech in Karnataka, which drew criticism from the opposition.Singh, an MLA from Hyderabad’s Goshamahal, has continued to make provocative speeches against the minority community, even though he was warned against such conduct by the Telangana high court while granting bail. The court also instructed him not to make any derogatory and offensive social media posts as well.The court’s order, however, hasn’t been a deterrent in Singh’s case. He attended several rallies in Maharashtra organised by Hindutva outfits and was found making open calls for the boycott of Muslims and provoking Hindus to resort to violence against them. In January this year, at the Hindu Janakrosh Morcha organised by Sakal Hindu Samaj in Mumbai, Singh had declared that if the Maharashtra state government didn’t come up with an anti-conversion law, Hindus would soon be up in arms. He had used abusive, derogatory words and called for direct violence against the Muslim community. Even the Mangalhat police of Hyderabad city had served a show-cause notice on him after his speeches in Maharashtra.In March this year, during the Ram Navami Shoba Yatra procession held in Hyderabad, he appealed to the Hindu community to work towards making India a unified Hindu state (Akhand Hindu Rashtra).“Today in India, there are 100 crore Hindus. So why not declare India as a Hindu country? Today, we have more than 50 Islamic countries and 150 Christian countries. So today I want to ask those ‘impotent’ leaders who are against Akhand Hindu Rashtra, why are you objecting to it?” Raja Singh had challenged.
