The police officer arrived at the Hindu temple here with a warning to the monks: Don’t repeat your hate speech.
Ten days earlier, before a packed audience and thousands watching online, the monks had called for violence against the country’s minority Muslims. Their speeches, in one of India’s holiest cities, promoted a genocidal campaign to “kill two million of them” and urged an ethnic cleansing of the kind that targeted Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
When videos of the event provoked national outrage, the police came. The saffron-clad preachers questioned whether the officer could be objective.
Yati Narsinghanand, the event’s firebrand organizer known for his violent rhetoric, assuaged their concerns.
Violent anti-Muslim rhetoric has reached a dangerous new pitch in India while the government looks away, rights groups and local activists are warning. They fear that a singular event could ignite widespread violence that would be difficult to contain.https://t.co/JyJ4tl5IQA
— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 8, 2022