Karnataka police have booked BJP parliamentarian and terror accused Pragya Singh Thakur three days after an alleged hate speech, after facing criticism for the delay and for summoning those who criticised the force’s long inaction.

Pragya, a Lok Sabha member and accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast, is accused of urging Hindus to keep their kitchen knives sharp for those engaging in “love jihad” — an alleged Muslim conspiracy to lure Hindu women into romance and marriage to convert and radicalise them.

“So let’s keep our vegetable knives sharp. One never knows when the opportunity arises. When they (knives) cut our vegetables well, they would certainly cut our enemies’ mouths and heads,” Pragya allegedly said while addressing an event of the Hindu Jagarana Vedike in Shimoga, about 300km from here, on Sunday.

Trinamul Congress national spokesperson Saket Gokhale and political analyst Tehseen Poonawalla had posted tweets on Wednesday accusing the police of ignoring their emailed complaints against the delay in registering an FIR, and instead summoning them.

The FIR was registered on Wednesday night on a complaint from Shimoga district Congress president H.S. Sundaresh, who met the district superintendent of police and later visited the jurisdictional Kote police station.

Pragya faces charges under penal sections 153A (promoting enmity between groups), 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration), 268 (public nuisance), 295A (deliberate and malicious intention of outraging religious feelings), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) and 508 (attempt to cause any person to do anything that the person is not legally bound to do).

If convicted, she faces up to five years in prison. Pragya is out on bail in the Malegaon case. A bomb explosion in Malegoan, Maharashtra, had killed six people and injured about 100 in 2008.