The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: A day after announcing a Rs 10 crore bounty on Tamil Nadu sports minister Udhayanidhi Stalin for his remarks on the sanatana dharma, Mahanta Paramhans Das has now said that he would behead Stalin himself.
“If required, I myself will behead MK Stalin’s son, and I will also increase the bounty of Rs 10 crore if that is not enough for beheading him,” Das was quoted by ANI as saying on Tuesday (September 5).
Head priest in Ayodhya’s Tapasvi Chhawni temple, Das on Monday had announced a cash reward for anyone who “beheads” Stalin over his ‘anti-sanatana Dharma’ remark, the Times of India (TOI) reported. In response to how he’ll pay the hefty sum, Das was quoted by the paper saying, “I am the owner of Rs 500 crore and paying Rs 10 crore is nothing for me.”
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“I would like to tell him to first read the history of sanatana dharma and then comment against it. He should apologise for whatever he has said against our sanatana dharma, and if he does not apologise, no matter if he is the son of a chief minister, he will get the punishment,” Das said.
Stalin, while attending an event titled ‘Sanatana Ozhippu Maanaadu’ [‘Sanatana Abolition Conclave’] organised by the Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers and Artists Association to critique the concept of sanatana dharma, said, “I congratulate the organisers for calling the conference as ‘eradication of sanatana dharma’ instead of ‘opposing sanatana dharma’…There are certain things which we have to eradicate and we cannot merely oppose. Mosquitoes, dengue, corona and malaria are things which we cannot oppose, we have to eradicate them. Sanatanam is also like this. Eradication and not opposing sanatanam has to be our first task.”
The statement sparked a controversy after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) IT cell head Amit Malviya interpreted the remarks as a “call for [the] genocide” of sanatanis, who he claimed comprise “80% [of the] population of Bharat”.