Sparking off a fresh controversy, Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Sadhvi Prachi on Thursday announced a reward of ₹50 lakh to anyone who would 'behead' Zakir Naik, the Indian Islamic preacher who has been accused of having inspired two of the perpetrators of the recent massacre in Dhaka. Naik's speeches and sermons are banned in the United Kingdom, Canada , Malaysia, and now Bangladesh, for their inflammatory content.
According to a report in The Indian Express, Prachi made the statement while speaking to the media in Roorkee, Uttarakhand.
In a fiery speech, Prachi asked the people to cut off Naik's head and tie it up to a tree in India to "truly deserve the bounty".
She later explained to IE that she had announced the reward not because Zakir Naik was a religious preacher, but because "he was a terrorist".
Prachi's announcement came only a few days after a Shia group that calls itself the Hussaini Tigers placed a bounty of ₹15 lakh on Naik.
Prachi later claimed that she had received an overseas call "threatening" to abduct her for her speech.
Prachi has often been in the news for asking people to boycott films of Bollywood superstars who happen to be Muslims — Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, and Aamir Khan. She had also demanded a CBI probe into all Muslim educational institutions including the Aligarh Muslim University and the Deoband madrasa to check for anti-national activities.