On Sunday, Qatar, Kuwait, and Iran summoned Indian envoys in their respective countries in response to a spokesperson for India’s ruling party making offensive remarks about Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
The Qatari Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it summoned the Indian envoy to express Qatar’s “disappointment and utter rejection and condemnation of the controversial remarks made by an official in India’s ruling party against Prophet Muhammad.”
Nupur Sharma, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s spokesperson, made derogatory statements about the prophet during a television debate, eliciting widespread censure at home and throughout the Islamic world.
The party took a stand against her comments and suspended the spokesperson. Another BJP spokesperson, Naveen Kumal Jindal, was kicked out of the party for making anti-Islam remarks.
The Indian government is expected to issue a “public apology and a prompt repudiation of these remarks,” according to Doha.
The Indian Embassy in Doha, on its part, said on Twitter that the ambassador told them during the meeting that “serious action has already been taken against individuals who made the insulting remarks.”
“We should work together against such malicious groups who seek to undermine the strength of our bilateral ties,” it continued.
Meanwhile, the South Asia department of Iran’s Foreign Ministry announced that the Indian ambassador to Tehran had been summoned to express Iran’s displeasure with the offensive statements.
Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry had earlier stated it summoned the Indian ambassador and delivered a memorandum of protest, expressing “categorical rejection and denunciation” of the disrespectful remarks about Prophet Muhammad.
