Yogi Adityanath on Thursday compared the recent violence in Sambhal to the upheaval in Bangladesh, and said people should be alert to prevent a similar situation in India.

The apparent scaremongering seemed a continuation of the Uttar Pradesh chief minister’s polarising efforts during the Maharashtra elections, when he mouthed the slogan “Batenge toh katenge (Divided, we’ll be slaughtered)”.

“Whatever happened in Ayodhya 500 years ago and what Babur did at the suggestion of his adviser was also done in Sambhal. Whatever is happening today in Bangladesh is similar to the situation in Sambhal,” Adityanath said while inaugurating a five-day Ramayan Mela, a religious and cultural gathering, on the banks of the Saryu in Ayodhya.

He added: “The character and DNA of the two situations are the same.... People should be alert to avert a situation similar to Bangladesh in India.”

Minority Hindus and their temples have come under attack in Bangladesh since the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina government on August 5 in a public uprising.

Four people died in street clashes in Sambhal on November 24 during a survey of the Jama Masjid, ordered by a court on a petition claiming Mughal emperor Babur had got his governor Mir Beg to demolish a Harihar temple and build the mosque over it in 1529.

Hindutva groups also claim that Mir Baqi, a chieftain of Babur, razed a Ram temple in Ayodhya and built the Babri Masjid on the site in 1528. The Supreme Court in 2019 handed over to Hindus the site of the Babri Masjid, demolished by a mob in 1992. Since then, many court petitions have been moved alleging this or that mosque or dargah was built over a destroyed temple.

Opposition parties and Muslims in Sambhal have questioned the role of the Adityanath administration in the November 24 violence.

A mob accompanying the court-appointed survey commission had allegedly kept up a chant of “Jai Shri Ram” at the gate of the Jama Masjid in the presence of the district magistrate and the superintendent of police.

Adityanath also targeted the Samajwadi Party, the most potent threat to the BJP in the state, saying: “Dr (Ram Manohar) Lohia was an idealist but the Samajwadi Party follows dynasty politics.”

The SP, founded by Mulayam Singh Yadav and now led by his son Akhilesh, claims allegiance to Lohia’s socialist ideology.

Adityanath said the SP “becomes restless without the support of criminals the way a fish writhes without water”.

Akhilesh said: “The chief minister shouldn’t use such language while wearing saffron clothes.”

“However, since he has been talking so much about DNA, I and all other SP members would like to undergo DNA tests. But I also want a DNA test on the chief minister to know more about him,” Akhilesh said.