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Crisis in India-Muslim relations, following remarks by ousted Indian official

Protests intensified in the Muslim world on Monday over statements made by the ruling party’s spokeswoman in India and were deemed offensive to Islam.

The comments of the representative of the nationalist Hindu party Baratiya Janata (BJP), who was removed from office on Sunday, referred to the relationship of the Prophet Muhammad with his youngest wife and caused outrage in several Gulf countries, where they work. , in Algeria, in Egypt.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), based in Saudi Arabia, which belongs to almost sixty Muslim countries, condemned the comments of the BJP representative yesterday, who revealed to him how serious the problem is “Islamophobia” in India.

In Kuwait, which summoned India’s ambassador to the Foreign Ministry on Sunday, a supermarket chain announced that it had imposed a boycott on Indian products. “We withdrew the products from India,” he said in front of plastic shelves where one could find packaged rice and curry. “As Kuwaitis and Muslims, we do not condone insulting the Prophet,” said Nasser al-Mutairi, president and chief executive of the chain, the emirate’s largest.

“All Muslim countries should boycott Indian products,” said a 26-year-old customer.

Repeated convictions

The wave of condemnation is being recorded as Indian Vice President Wenkaya Naidu visits Qatar to seek to strengthen bilateral relations.

In addition to Kuwait, Qatar and Iran have called on India’s ambassadors to demand an explanation and an apology. Saudi Arabia, which called Noupur Sarma’s remarks “offensive”, called for “respect for beliefs and religions”, while Bahrain and Jordan welcomed the departure of the BJP’s spokeswoman. Sunday.

The party of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which is systematically accused of stigmatizing the Muslim minority in India (14% of the population), has said in a statement that it “respects all religions”.

In Algeria the largest Islamist party, the Movement for Society and Peace, has strongly condemned “the escalation of the anti-Islam and anti-Muslim hatred campaign in India, which is part of the official persecution of religious minorities. “.

In Cairo, Al-Azar University, one of the main institutions in the Sunni world, “strongly condemned” Ms. Sarma’s statements yesterday, which revealed “blatant ignorance” and called on “the international community to react strongly and strongly”.

Ms. Sarma said via Twitter that she was responding to “insults” against the Hindu deity of Shiva but was “unconditionally withdrawing” their statements because she did not want to “offend anyone’s religious beliefs”.

A local BJP official, Navin Kumar Jidal, who made similar comments via Twitter before deleting them, was expelled from the party.

The Gulf countries, which import almost all of the food they consume, have good trade relations with India, which also supplies them through labor.

Of the 13.5 million Indians who have emigrated to other countries, about 8.7 million live in the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, according to Indian authorities.

Source: AMPE

Source: Capital

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