Sangh parivar activists “purified” the entrance to the deputy commissioner’s office in Karnataka’s Shimoga with cow urine after a Muslim youth recited the azaan there to protest a BJP’s leader’s comment against the prayer call.

Bajrang Dal workers on Monday marched to the deputy commissioner’s office and one of them sprinkled cow urine from a bottle at the spot where the Muslim youth had recited the azaan.

The azaan recital was in protest against BJP leader K.S. Eshwarappa’s recent utterances against the prayer call over loudspeakers.

A youth named Mousin Ahamed who was part of a protest march to the deputy commissioner’s office had given the prayer call.

Police later booked him for breaching the security of a government facility before releasing him on station bail. Rajesh Gowda, a local leader of the Bajrang Dal, told reporters in Shimoga that the recital of azaan at the government office was akin to “religious fanaticism”.

“Everybody has the right to protest. But reciting it at the deputy commissioner’s office was sheer religious fanaticism. We purified the spot since it is not a designated place for azaan,” he said.

A former minister, Eshwarappa had on Sunday commented against the use of loudspeakers for azaan while he was addressing the BJP’s Vijay Sankalpa Yatra in Dakshina Kannada district.

“Wherever I go, this (azaan playing in the background) is a headache. Does Allah hear only if you scream over loudspeakers?” Eshwarappa had said.

A day later, he said he was against the use of loudspeakers for azaan since it disturbed students preparing for exams and the sick.

Soon after the “purification” ritual, Eshwarappa told reporters in Shimoga that he would write to the chief minister and the Union government seeking stringent action against the use of government premises for azaan.

He urged the protesters to realise they are not in Pakistan.

“The people who perform azaan like this (at a government office) don’t know if they are living in Pakistan or India.”

The ruling BJP has been openly leveraging its pet issues such as cow slaughter, “love jihad” and Tipu Sultan apparently to buck the anti-incumbency ahead of the state polls later this year.

Minister Munirathna had on Monday made a quick turnaround on being prodded by a seer after he rolled out a film project about the “real killers” of Tipu, who ruled the kingdom of Mysore in the eighteenth century.

Two days after announcing the film titled Uri Gowda Nanje Gowda — on two fictional characters the Sangh parivar has been projecting as the real killers of Tipu — Munirathna had on Monday shelved the project after a meeting with prominent Vokkaliga pontiff Nirmalananda Swami of the Adichunchunagiri Mutt.

The Sangh parivar’s attempt was to refute established history that Tipu, popular as the Tiger of Mysore for his valour, was killed on May 4, 1799, in the fourth Anglo-Mysore War while defending his fort in his capital Srirangapatna, near Mysore.