Man held from Odisha for 'threatening' MP Assembly Speaker

A man was apprehended from Odisha for 'threatening' MP Assembly Speaker Rameshwar Sharma for opposing a protest over the cartoon row in France.

Bhopal:A man was arrested on Friday for allegedly threatening the Madhya Pradesh Assembly's pro-tem Speaker Rameshwar Sharma for opposing a protest over the cartoon row in France, the police said here.

Javed Akthar (28), a resident of Khagra in Devghar district in Jharkhand, was arrested from Sambalpur in Odisha by a team of Crime Branch and Cyber Cell of the MP police.

"He had threatened on Facebook to kill the speaker. He works at a steel factory in Sambalpur," said Additional Director General of Police, Bhopal, Upendra Jain.

The Assembly secretariat had sought security for the pro-tem speaker after he received threats on social media for opposing a recent protest against France, an official said.

On Thursday, members of the Muslim community protested at the Iqbal Maidan here against French President Emmanuel Macron over the controversy about the depiction of Prophet Muhammad in cartoons.

The protest had been led by Congress MLA Arif Masood.

Rameshwar Sharma had said in a statement afterwards that protesters created an atmosphere of fear by backing fundamentalism and they should have held the protest in France as the incident had nothing to do with the state.

PTI