After drawing line over hate remarks, West Asian nations to let matters rest; UN Secy-Gen calls for tolerance

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 7

By summoning the Indian envoys or issuing statements condemning the comments against Prophet Muhammad by now-suspended BJP office-bearers, at least 15 countries have indicated the red line that should not be crossed. At the same time, almost all of them have accepted the clarifications given by Indian diplomats.

In fact, Iran, which had also summoned the Indian envoy in Tehran, has gone ahead with the India visit of its Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. The Iranian Foreign Minister will meet External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar here tomorrow and then over the next two days travel to Mumbai and Hyderabad to meet Indian businessmen and religious scholars.

Though Qatar’s Foreign Ministry expected a public apology from the Indian government, sources said Doha would let matters rest after showing its annoyance by cancelling a dinner for visiting Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu, who also refrained from holding a planned press conference as the Indian envoy had been summoned by its Foreign Ministry a few hours earlier.

Sources said the issue snowballed unmanageably on social media after the Grand Mufti of Oman’s statement spoke of BJP’s “rudeness” toward Islam as a form of “war” and Egypt’s Al-Azhar Mosque said the remarks were “real terrorism that can plunge the entire world into severe crises and deadly wars”. As a result, several countries had to go through the motions of summoning Indian envoys to their foreign offices.

But the takeaway from otherwise stern protest statements was that the foreign offices were willing to accept the MEA’s expression of regret and that action had been taken against Nupur Sharma and Navin Kumar Jindal, who did not hold government positions. A common point in at least half a dozen of the protest demarches served on Indian envoys was that they “welcomed” the decision by the Bharatiya Janata Party to suspend the party’s officials due to their provocative remarks.

BJP leader arrested

Kanpur: BJP leader Harshit Srivastava was arrested here on Tuesday for posting inflammatory content on social media platforms. PTI

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