Indian authorities have removed a copy of the Bible and the Quran from a new statue of a former president after a complaint by a Hindu nationalist party, officials say.
The removal of the books has fueled a religious row over a carving depicting a Hindu holy book placed next to the statue of A.P.J. Abdul Kalam at Rameswaram in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
Kalam, who as a scientist played a leading role in India’s landmark 1998 nuclear weapons tests, was president from 2002 to 2007 and a strongly secular figure.
The sculpted Hindu “Bhagavad Gita” book was placed next to the statue before it was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week on the second anniversary of Kalam’s death.
Relatives placed the Bible and the Quran next to the Gita in protest. That infuriated the Hindu Makka Katchi nationalist party, which said it made the complaint to police.
“The authorities removed the Bible and the Quran at the site. We are also looking at the complaint filed with us,” police superintendent Om Prakash Meena told AFP.
— AFP
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