ALWAR: Controversial Rajasthan BJP legislator Gyan Dev Ahuja, who had earlier said that cow slaughter was a bigger crime than terrorism, has once again raked up a bitter controversy, this time, due to his stance on "love jihad".


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Speaking to ANI, Ahuja had claimed that girls coming from the Hindu families were being targeted, lured into love jihad and forced to change their religion.


"Our girls have been lured on the pretext of love jihad. But I am giving these people time to bring the girls back safely to their homes. If this is not done, I am telling you-your daughters will not be safe; you have wrongly converted the religion of our girls," Ahuja said.


The BJP MLA from Rajasthan had recently courted controversy by saying that cow slaughter was a bigger crime than terrorism. 


"Cow slaughtering is a bigger crime than terrorism. Terrorists kill two to three people, but when a cow is killed, sentiments of crores of Hindus get hurt," Ahuja had said.


Ahuja had made this remarks in the aftermath of the Alwar lynching incident in which a 28-year-old man identified as Rakbar aka Akbar Khan was lynched over suspicion of cow smuggling.


The Alwar lynching incident evoked a sharp response from the Opposition parties which attacked the ruling BJP dispensation at the Centre for not handling the issues firmely.


The issue also resonated in both houses of Parliament after which the government said that it was ready to bring a tougher law to tackle the menace of mob lynching in the name of cow protection.


The Centre and the state government also issued a stern warning to the alleged cow vigilantes and asked them not to take into their hands.


In the wake of increasing incidents of mob lynching in the name of cow smuggling and slaughter, Prime Minister Narendra Modi too urged all the state governments to take stringent action against those involved in mob lynching incidents and punish them at the earliest.


As per data compiled by the Ministry of Home Affairs, 45 persons were killed in 40 cases of mob lynching across nine states between 2014 and 3 March 2018. 


(With ANI inputs)