ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani prime minister’s aide on religious harmony has condemned “blasphemous” remarks by a Hindu leader in India against the city of Makkah and the Kaaba, the holiest site in Islam, calling the remarks “unacceptable,” state-owned Radio Pakistan reported on Wednesday.

The statement came after Hindu militant priest, Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, in a viral video message, called on Hindus to “unite, attack, and capture” Makkah, revered in Islam as the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and of the religion itself. 

“The blasphemous remarks by Indian Hindu leaders against the holiest places of Islam are not acceptable to Muslims,” Pakistani prime minister’s aide on interfaith harmony, Hafiz Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi, was quoted as saying by Radio Pakistan.

“The Muslim Ummah is quite disturbed over the blasphemous words of Hindutva leaders,” he added, adding that the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had made “the so-called secular country miserable for the minorities.”

Saraswati’s remarks drew the ire of Muslims across the globe, with many calling on the priest to apologize and asking the Indian government to take legal action against him.

Muslims account for 13 percent of India’s 1.4 billion people and many have complained of marginalization under the rule of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. The government denies the charges and says all Indians, irrespective of religion, are benefiting from Modi’s focus on economic development and social welfare.

Saraswati, who is the leader of the Dasna Devi temple in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, was arrested by Indian authorities in January 2022 for inciting his followers to “eliminate” Muslims and make India “free of Islam”.