Self-styled priest arrested for publicly threatening Muslim women with rape

An Indian man who was seen in a viral video publicly threatening to kidnap and rape Muslim women has been arrested by the police in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

The man called Bajrang Muni is a self-styled priest. He was arrested from Sitapur district of Uttar Pradesh and has been sent to jail for 14 days in judicial custody. Muni has been booked for promoting enmity between two groups and under charges of sexual harassment.

In a two-minute video that went viral on social media last week, Muni could be heard talking about raping Muslim women. He was addressing a crowd at an event organised in the Khairabad area of the district to mark the Hindu religious festival of Navratri.

The incident had originally taken place on April 2 but the video went viral only after it was tweeted by Mohammed Zubair, the founder of a local factcheck platform called Alt News.

Bajrang Muni alias Anupam Mishra in the video says: "I am telling this to you [Muslims] with love that if a single Hindu girl is teased by you in Khairabad, I will openly bring your daughters and daughters-in-law out of your home and rape them," he said in the video.

The self-styled priest then goes on to add that conspiracy is being hatched to kill him and up to Rs 2.5m (£28,000) have been collected for the same.

"They don't know that if I am murdered then for the next 100 years in Khairabad, Muslims will be murdered and Lord Ram will be hailed," he said, according to The Wire.

The hate speech was made in the presence of police officers and Muni was arrested only after the video drew backlash from activists, opposition political parties and other social media users.

The National Commission for Women also came forward demanding action against the self-proclaimed priest. The commission sought "appropriate measures from the police to curb people from using such outrageous language for women and not be a mute spectator in such incidents."

He released a video apologising for his statement only after the police registered a criminal case against him for the alleged hate speech. "My statement has been presented in a wrong way. I seek unconditional apology for the same," he said.