An FIR has been registered against senior RSS leader Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat for his statement that Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave “permanent husbands” to Muslim women by criminalising the practice of triple talaq.

“Muslim women had separate husbands each day. They did not have permanent husbands. It was Modi government that gave them permanent husbands,” Bhat said at a Hanuman Jayanthi celebration at Srirangapatna in Karnataka on Sunday, triggering outrage.

The FIR also says that he had accused Muslim women of trapping Hindu men with “love jihad”.

“Not just young Muslim men. Even Muslim women have been cheating. They are engaging in ‘love jihad’ with Hindu youngsters. Don’t you (Muslims) have young women and men?” Bhat had allegedly said at the public event.

Srirangapatna police on Tuesday registered an FIR naming Bhat, on a complaint lodged by social worker Najma Nazeer.

Bhat is booked under IPC sections 354 (outraging the modesty of women), 294 (uttering obscenity), 509 (insulting modesty of women), 506 (criminal intimidation), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups), 295 (insult to a class of persons), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts to outrage religious feelings) and 298 (uttering words with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings).

At the same event Bhat had accused chief minister Siddaramaiah of sowing the seeds of hatred by proposing to lift the ban on hijab in government-run schools.

A controversial leader, Bhat has been booked for hate on several occasions in the past. A school run by a trust he heads had in December 2019 staged a skit where students re-enacted the demolition of the Babri Masjid.