A BJP MLA has triggered a political controversy after a video surfaced showing him claiming that those accused of embezzling donations at the Ram temple in Ayodhya would be struck by cancer as "divine punishment."
Anil Singh, the BJP legislator from Purwa in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao district, made the remarks during a party programme in Maurawan on Sunday.
In the viral video, Singh is heard saying that those who stole money from Lord Ram's temple would "directly get cancer" and suffer a painful death.
"The government will take legal action, but Lord Ram will punish them in such a way that they will die a painful death. Even their next seven generations will remember the consequences of stealing from the temple," he said.
The comments come amid an ongoing investigation into the alleged misappropriation of donations at the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
On June 13, the Uttar Pradesh government constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) after the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust sought a probe into the allegations.
Following the SIT's findings, eight people, Avinash Shukla, Anukalp Mishra, Lav Kush Mishra, Manish Kumar Yadav, Karunesh Pandey, Ram Shankar Mishra, Subhash Srivastava and Ramashankar alias Tinnu Yadav, were arrested in connection with the case.
The opposition has alleged that the arrests targeted only lower-level operatives while the alleged masterminds remain at large.
At the same event, Singh also attacked the Samajwadi Party, accusing its leaders of land grabbing, siphoning off food rations meant for the poor and denying benefits to eligible beneficiaries.
He further claimed that Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav was facing a CBI probe and had now been "forced to invoke the name of Lord Ram."
(With inputs from PTI)