MATHURA: Spiritual leader Devkinandan Thakur has claimed he received a death threat from an unidentified person for "objecting to the SC/ST Act", police said Thursday.
Thakur claimed he got a call from a man, who said "he will be killed" if he continued opposing the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, they said.
"A complaint has been registered against the caller and investigation is going on," Deputy Superintendent of Police Rakesh Kumar said. I am not against the SC/ST Act but I am strictly against its misuse," Thakur said Wednesday before he left for the US, where he will deliver religious discourses.
Thakur also claimed that he was Wednesday taken into police custody in Agra for opposing the SC/ST Act but was released later.
He said he was invited to attend a programme to protest the SC/ST Act but he chose to give it a miss on the advice of the district administration.
Police took him into custody while he was talking to the media in a hotel, he claimed.
Various upper caste and OBC groups have also been protesting the recent amendment approved by Parliament to overturn a Supreme Court judgment on the SC/ST Act.
The apex court had on March 20 ruled that a preliminary enquiry in a case under the Act would be done by a Deputy Superintendent of Police to ensure the allegations were not frivolous and to avoid false implication of innocent persons.
The court had also held that a government official could not be prosecuted on the basis of mere allegation of an offence under the Act without the sanction of the appointing authority.