JAKARTA - Al-Qaeda group threatened to carry out revenge bombings in India, after officials of the country's ruling party made comments insulting the Prophet Muhammad.
Street violence gripped parts of India last week, as New Delhi battled a diplomatic furor following insulting comments by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman Nupur Sharma and another official, Navin Kumar Jindal.
At least 16 Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Turkey, lodged a diplomatic protest against New Delhi and condemned comments against the Prophet Muhammad, reported The National News June 8.
On Tuesday, the global extremist group AL-Qaeda said its members were ready to blow themselves up in Delhi, Mumbai, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh. The threat from the group, which has declined over the long term since the death of its founder Osama bin Laden, was reported by Site, a terrorism monitoring and analysis firm.
There was no immediate comment by the government on its warning or readiness to address the threat. Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists killed about 170 people in 2008 in Mumbai, one of India's worst terrorist attacks.
Currently the group is virtually non-existent in India but has been blamed for a series of attacks in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The latest statement comes nearly two months after the group made a similar statement, after the Karnataka government banned Muslim students from wearing headscarves.
PM Modi's government last week said the views were 'fringe elements' and did not represent the views of the Government of India, as it faced diplomatic backlash from Muslim countries.
Anger is mounting among India's 200 million Muslim population, with many demanding the arrests of Sharma and Jindal. Both received additional armed security from the government, after admitting to receiving death threats.
Last week Hindu and Muslim men clashed in the northern city of Kanpur, after calls were made to protest the insulting remarks. At least 50 people have been arrested, most of them Muslims.
Meanwhile, a major protest is planned for June 10 in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh.
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