Yogi Adityanath, the new chief minister of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, speaks during a news conference on Sunday in Lucknow, India. Amnesty’s statement came after hard-line Hindu monk Yogi Adityanath took power last week in Uttar Pradesh, a state with a population of 200 million. As the largest state in India, Uttar Pradesh has great sway over national politics. Last year a mob lynched a Muslim man in a town called Dadri in Uttar Pradesh for allegedly slaughtering a cow, which Hindus consider sacred. Leading up to the election, in the interior of Uttar Pradesh, Adityanath reportedly promised people a Muslim-free India, if the Hindus forgot their caste and class bias and voted on the basis of religion for the BJP.

Source: Washington Post March 24, 2017 15:01 UTC