Mohammed Javed, an accused in the 2022 tailor Kanhaiya Lal murder case in Udaipur, Rajasthan, was granted bail by the High Court on Thursday on a bond of Rs 2 lakh and a surety of Rs 1 lakh.
Mohammad Javed is accused of carrying out recce in the case in which a tailor was murdered by two men who slit the victim’s throat and later posted a video on social media in which they claimed they were avenging the insult to Islam, indirectly referring to the remarks made against the Prophet by former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Nupur Sharma.
The incident, which took place on June 28, 2022, had triggered communal tension across the state with locals protesting against the killing and sporadic incidents of violence, following which the Rajasthan government suspended internet services and imposed Section 144 of the CrPC for a month in the state.
Kanhaiya Lal was allegedly murdered for sharing a social media post in support of then BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma, whose comments led to massive controversy and reactions from other countries.
The attackers entered Lal’s shop posing as customers and killed him. Videos of the killing were posted on the Internet, showing two of the alleged attackers holding butcher knives and claiming responsibility for the killing, identifying themselves as Muhammad Riyaz Attari and Muhammad Gaus.
Nupur Sharma made the comment about the Islamic prophet Muhammad in response to comments on the Hindu god Shiva during a TV news channel debate on the Gyanvapi mosque dispute. Sharma’s comment was in reference to an account in Sahih al-Bukhari that Muhammad (53 years old) married Aisha when she was six years old, and their marriage was consummated when Aisha was nine.
The controversy escalated further on June 1 when Delhi BJP media head Naveen Kumar Jindal made a similar comment on Twitter. By June 4, the comment was widely shared on social media and was trending in the top 10 hashtags across all countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Turkey.
While several Gulf countries, including India’s allies and partners, strongly condemned the remarks and threatened to boycott Indian goods, India’s BJP-led government responded to the controversy by distancing itself from the remarks, saying they came from “fringe elements”. The BJP later suspended Sharma and expelled Jindal from the party.
Mohammed Javed, who was 19 at the time, was arrested in July 2022 for allegedly playing a “key role” in the conspiracy to murder the tailor in Udaipur, Rajasthan, a National Investigation Agency (NIA) official said.
An NIA spokesperson said Mohammad Javed, resident of Sindhi Government Haveli, Kheradiwala, was the eighth accused arrested in connection with the murder of Kanhaiya Lal by two assailants armed with sharp-edged weapons at his shop in Maldas Gali, Udaipur.
“Mohammad Javed played a key role in the conspiracy to murder Kanhaiya Lal as he informed the main killer Riyaz about the presence of the victim at the shop before the attack,” the NIA official said.