Don't worry about BJP's return to power: Owaisi to Muslims

AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi Friday said the country's Muslims should not worry about the BJP's return to power as the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion to every citizen.

The Hyderabad MP also hit out at the perpetrators of the April 21 Easter Sunday serial bomb blasts in Sri Lanka, which left more than 250 people dead.

The Bharatiya Janata Party capped a massive mandate by winning a total of 303 seats while the NDA has 353 MPs in the recently elected 17th Lok Sabha.

"India's law, Constitution gives us this permission that we follow our religion," the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief said in his address to a gathering at the Makkah Masjid here.

"When India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi can go to a temple, you can proudly visit a mosque," he told the gathering.

Slamming those behind the terror attacks on churches and luxury hotels in the island nation, Owaisi said there was no place for violence in Islam.

The Islamic State group had claimed responsibility for the attack.

"Carrying out bomb blasts at a place of worship of someone else and killing more than 200 people, including 40 innocent children... what Islam are you talking about," Owaisi said.

The perpetrators were "following the teachings of the devil and not Islam", Owaisi added.