LUCKNOW: Muslim cleric Maulana Sajid Rashidi had to face a tough time at the office of a TV news channel when he was attacked by a few Samajwadi Party workers in Noida on Tuesday.
Rashidi had been hitting headlines after making derogatory and misogynistic remarks on Mainpuri MP Dimple Yadav during a televised debate over her visit to a mosque with her husband and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and other SP MPs recently.
Even a criminal case against the cleric was registered by one Pravesh Yadav at Vibhuti Khand police station in Lucknow under multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), including Section 79 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman), 196 (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, etc), and 197 (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration), among others.
Provisions under the Information Technology Act were also invoked for the circulation of the content on digital platforms.
As per sources, the Tuesday incident took place when the Maulana had gone to the office of a TV news channel to take part in a debate. He was silently approached by a few ‘SP workers’ who started raining slaps on him. The cleric then rushed for shelter and was saved by the security personnel present on the site.
Later, the cleric named two persons – both SP workers Kuldeep Bhati and Mohit Nagar – for launching an attack on him. He even gave a complaint against the two accused at Sector-126 police station.
Meanwhile, after the registration of a criminal case in Lucknow on late Sunday evening over his objectionable remarks against Dimple Yadav, the Maulana stood by his statement, saying that he did not say anything wrong and that an issue was being made out of it unnecessarily.
“My statement is being unnecessarily made into an issue to run a narrative. I did not say anything wrong," Maulana Sajid Rashidi said while talking to media persons.
“In the society and place I come from, if a woman is not wearing a veil over her head, people say, ‘She’s roaming around uncovered, why hasn’t she taken a veil?’ It’s not like I committed a terrorist attack. This issue has been blown out of proportion," maintained the Maulana.
However, SP chief and Kannauj MP Akhilesh Yadav has chosen to keep mum over the issue so far.