The Uttarakhand Police on Saturday (January 15) arrested the controversial priest of Dasna temple, Yati Narasinghanand Saraswati from his dharna site in Haridwar in connection with his alleged derogatory remarks against women politicians.
As Narasinghanand has been facing a few other cases including a much controversial Haridwar hate speech, it led people to believe that he was arrested in connection with the hate speech.
Narasinghanand was arrested from Sarvanand Ghat in Haridwar. where he was holding a hunger strike to protest the arrest of Waseem Rizvi alias Jitendra Narayan Tyagi.
Tyagi is accused of making a hate speech at three days Dharma Sansad held in Haridwar in December, last year. Both Tyagi and Narasinghanand are among those named accused in the FIRs lodged in connection with the event.
Circle officer (Haridwar), Shekhar Chandra Suyal confirmed that Yati Narsinghanand was arrested in connection with a case pertaining to derogatory remarks against women. CO Haridwar informed that two to three cases were registered against Narsinghanand.
A third-year law student Ruchika lodged an FIR at a Haridwar police station on charges of insulting religious beliefs and making derogatory remarks about women.
Narsinghanand made some distasteful remarks against women. On August 29, last year his one such video popped up on social media platforms in which he was heard using derogatory language against women in politics, especially against those who are in BJP. In this undated video, Narsinghanand said that most of the women in politics were the rakhail (mistress) of at least one male politician. “And if not then she is relative of an influential leader,” he had said.
“Now the women you see in BJP… if she compromises with one politician, the other politician will not do their work unless she compromises with him as well. If she wants to get some work done from a third politician, she has to compromise there as well. This is politics. The country has reached this point. The women roaming in political arenas, everyone is enjoying,” he said.
In another statement, he had said that those Hindu parents having one son are demons and women who give birth to only one child are a nagin (snake).