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Bharatiya Janata Party MP Vinay Katiyar denied on Thursday that he had claimed that a holy relic housed in the Hazratbal mosque in Sringar belonged to a Hindu seer.
Katiyar's clarification came a day after violence erupted in Kashmir over his reported remarks.
Katiyar, according to reports, had threatened to approach the judiciary to "challenge the belief of Muslims that the holy hair preserved in Hazratbal is from the beard of Prophet Mohammed".
"The holy relic belongs to Nimnath Baba, a guru of the Hindus," he was quoted as saying.
The BJP leader claimed that he had never made such a statement and, further, said he was not aware that violence had erupted in consequence.
"I don't know what has happened in Srinagar. I was so busy with the Ayodhya issue that I lost track of developments in the rest of the country," Katiyar told rediff.com
"When a reporter asked me whether the Ayodhya issue could be resolved through court intervention, I said that the court's verdict couldn't satisfy the religious feelings and sentiments of communities. If the court said that a mandir couldn't be constructed at the site, then that judgement would not have taken into account the sentiments of the Hindu community. Such matters should be sorted out through dialogue," he said.
"It is in this context that I said that the Muslims in Kashmir believe that the strand of hair in Hazratbal belongs to Prophet Mohammed. We should respect their sentiments. Likewise, the Muslim community should respect the sentiments of the Hindus and allow the mandir to be constructed on the disputed site," he clarified.
When told that Dr Farooq Abdullah had demanded his arrest for making such a remark, Katiyar said that the Jammu and Kashmir chief minister could have spoken to him before making such statement.
"If he still wants to go ahead and arrest me, I will not resist. But let me assert that I never made that statement,' he said.
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