A cartoonist of an Indore-based afternoon paper was arrested late on Tuesday for allegedly insulting religious beliefs of Muslims. He had drawn a cartoon based on Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modis reported refusal to wear a skull cap during his fast in Ahmedabad. Harish Yadav,who draws under the pseudonym Mussaveer in Prabhat Kiran,was released on bail on Wednesday. Indore SP S Sreenivas Varma said the minority community had objected,saying the cartoon denigrated Islam and was offensive. One Javed had filed a police complaint on September 20,the day the cartoon appeared,but police claimed they had not been able to trace Yadav. Prabhat Kiran editor Prakash Purohit,however,said Yadav had been reporting to work for the first few days after the cartoon controversy. Though the paper carried a small apology on Wednesday,Purohit defended the cartoon saying Yadav wanted to show that Modi had squandered his last chance to resurrect his image by accepting the skull cap.
