Shiv Sena on Tuesday supported French President Emmanuel Macron and said that those who engaged in the barbaric act of slitting throats in the name of religion in France are enemies of humanity.
An editorial in the Shiv Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana' said political parties and Muslim community in India have no reason to get involved into the "internal affairs" of France.
Sena's comments come on the heels of the beheading of a French school teacher Samuel Paty in a Paris suburb by an 18-year-old Chechen refugee Abdoullakh Anzorov on October 16. This took place days after Paty took a class on freedom of expression in which he showed caricatures of Prophet Muhammad from the satire magazine Charlie Hebdo to his students. These were reportedly the same caricatures which led to the 2015 terror attack on Charlie Hebdo’s headquarters.
Meanwhile, the Shiv Sena editorial said Prophet Muhammad is a symbol of "peace and patience". Those who claim to be his followers are murdering the ideology and raising a question mark before the entire Islam, it said.
Besides, France has been reeling under brutal terrorist attacks. On October 29, two separate extremist attacks took place in the European nation.
A knife-wielding attacker Brahim Aouissaoui shouting "Allahu Akbar" beheaded a woman and killed two other people inside a church in the French city of Nice. In a separate incident, the police in France's Montfavet, near the southern city of Avignon, shot dead a man who was threatening passerby with a handgun. Radio station Europe 1 reported that this man, too, was shouting "Allahu Akbar".
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also come out in strong support of France and condemned the recent terror acts. "India stands with France in the fight against terrorism," PM Modi said.
(With PTI inputs)
