A major controversy has erupted over a Muslim yoga teacher making allegedly obscene videos in the barb of yoga practice. Several videos of the yoga teacher Suhail Ansari have gone viral online, with netizens raising questions over the objectionable videos of Ansari teaching advanced yoga to his woman students. Amidst the outrage, Pandit Dheerendra Shastri of Bageshwar Dham has alleged that Suhail Ansari makes yoga videos with Hindu women and has got four Hindu women married to Muslim men.
“Such is the dirty politics of these anti-religious snakes in their sleeves. He traps young girls through yoga and makes them have affairs with Muslim boys and get their Nikah done with them. He has four Hindu daughters married to Muslim men. When such things happen in India, my blood boils,” Shastri said.
It is worth noting that, in addition to the video of Pandit Dhirendra Shastri of Bageshwar Dham, a video on the Suhail Ansari matter has been put out from the official account of the Bageshwar Dham government to raise awareness in this matter.
It is said in the video that Suhail Ansari teaches obscenity in Delhi’s Lodhi Garden rather than yoga. “We released a video two days ago requesting that these yoga lessons be discontinued. Following this, Suhail apologised.”
Notably, Sohail Ansari describes himself as a yoga teacher and posts such videos on Instagram. Initially, similar videos boosted his following, however, when his videos reached Hindu activists, they strongly objected to it. Following this, Ansari has apologised.
OpIndia checked Ansari’s Instagram profile and discovered multiple videos of him conducting “advanced yoga” with his female students that appear objectionable. Notably, the majority of his videos feature female students. Several people have questioned whether Ansari has taught yoga or obscenity in the name of yoga.
Suhail Ansari in his Instagram bio claims to be a Yoga Guru, International Yoga champion and an International Yoga teacher. Ansari has around 153,000 followers on Instagram. After the backlash, Ansari has deleted many videos from his account. Earlier there were 2704 posts from his Instagram page, however, as Ansari deleted several videos, the number of posts now stands at 2644.
In an Instagram post on the 29th of March, Ansari expressed ‘remorse’ and stated that his purpose was not to offend anyone’s sentiments. He also stated that if anyone has an issue with any of his videos, he will delete them.
“I am an advanced Yoga teacher. I represented India in Common Wealth Games in 2010. In recent years I have won several gold medals at an international level. I have been teaching Yoga for the last fifteen years. I have a diploma as well as a master’s degree from Uttarakhand Sanskrit University Rishikesh. People come to me to learn advanced Yoga and most of them are Yoga teachers themselves…I am hurt after receiving some messages and threatening calls which indicated that some of my videos on social media have hurt their sentiments. My intentions are not to hurt anyone’s sentiments or feelings. I apologise from the bottom of my heart if I have hurt people’s sentiments. If any of my videos have hurt your sentiments, message me on Instagram and I will delete those videos,” Suhail Ansari said in his Instagram video.
Ansari, however, did not say anything about the allegation levelled by Bageshwar Dham’s Dheerendra Shastri regarding Ansari getting four Hindu women married to Muslim men.
Reacting to his video, many people asked Ansari why none of his videos feature any Hijab clad woman, raising questions if the advanced yoga teacher is deliberately targeting Hindu girls and women.
Ironically, Islamists who usually urge Muslims not to practice Yoga saying that it is “Shirk” (sin) and not allowed in Islam have no objection over Suhail Ansari being a Muslim yet teaching yoga.