Sharma To Be Summoned By Mumbai Police Over Prophet Remarks

FIRs are lodged across the country against suspended BJP spokeswoman Nupur Sharma (above) over her remark on the Prophet made during a TV debate show in May 2022

Mumbai Police will summon Nupur Sharma, a suspended BJP leader, to record her statement in connection with the FIR registered against her for allegedly making derogatory remarks against Prophet Muhammad, city police commissioner Sanjay Pandey said on Monday.

Addressing a press conference at the Mumbai Police headquarters, Pandey said, “An FIR was already registered against Nupur Sharma in Pydhonie police station. We will call her to record her statement as per law and the legal procedure will be followed”.

The Mumbai Police registered a case against the then BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma on May 28 for allegedly making objectionable remarks against Prophet Muhammad during a television news debate based on a complaint lodged by Irfan Sheikh, joint secretary of Raza Academy, a Muslim outfit.

Sharma was charged under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 295A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), 153A (promoting enmity between groups) and 505(2) (statements conducing to public mischief), police had said.

Nupur Sharma was suspended from BJP on June 5 over allegedly insulting remarks against the Prophet Mohammed that drew condemnation from several Islamic nations.

Sharma joined the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Sangh Parivar, as a student of Delhi University. She won the presidentship of the students’ union in 2008. A notable incident during her stint was the leading of an ABVP mob to heckle S. A. R. Geelani in a faculty seminar on ‘Communalism, Fascism and Democracy: Rhetoric and Reality’. She appeared on a television show later that night and gave brash responses. She graduated from the Hindu College at Delhi University with at Bachelor of Arts in economics and she later completed her Bachelor of Laws at Delhi University.

After receiving a Master of Laws degree at the London School of Economics, Sharma became a lawyer.

She also became a worker of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and is said to have worked with senior leaders like Arvind Pradhan, Arun Jaitley and Amit Shah. In 2015, at age 30, she was given the ticket for contesting against Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Admi Party (AAP) in the 2015 Delhi Legislative Assembly election. She lost the contest by 31,000 votes.

Afterwards, she was appointed as an official spokesperson for the BJP’s Delhi unit under Manoj Tiwari. In 2020, she was appointed as a national spokesperson of BJP under the presidentship of J. P. Nadda. According to a Delhi BJP leader, even when she was part of the Delhi unit, she was often sent out for TV debates on national issues because of her legal acumen, sound knowledge of national issues and bilingual skills.

On 27 May 2022, Sharma participated in a debate on the Gyanvapi Mosque dispute on the Times Now television channel, during which she made controversial remarks regarding Prophet Mohammed and the age of one of his wives, Aisha, noting that Aisha was 6-years-old when married, and 9 when the marriage was consummated. The Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair shared a video clip of her remarks on social media. Sharma later alleged that it was a “heavily edited and selected video”, which was denied by Pratik Sinha, the other co-founder of Alt News. Sinha stated that it was unedited and also included a longer clip which showed the context. Times Now deleted the video of the programme from its YouTube channel the next day.