Hindi-language magazine editor arrested in India for cartoons

Police have arrested the editor of a Hindi-language magazine for reprinting cartoons of Islam's Prophet Muhammad, the detainee's friends and officials said Thursday.

Photo: Hindi-language magazine editor arrested in India for cartoons

Alok Tomar, editor of Shabdarth, was arrested Wednesday after the government warned the Indian media not to publish anything that hurts the religious sentiments of any community.

He was arrested after police received a complaint that a cartoon of Prophet Mohammed appeared in his magazine, said an officer at a police station in a southern neighborhood of New Delhi, where Tomar was in custody.

The officer _ who gave no other details and was unable to say what, if any, charges would be brought against Tomar _ spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists.

Tomar's associates insisted the magazine, which isn't widely circulated, had no intention to offend Muslims.

The cartoon was reprinted to support an article that, on the contrary, argued the media should refrain from criticizing religious practices, said Sapnendra Sinha, a journalist friend of Tomar who was at a New Delhi court with Tomar's wife and lawyers to seek bail for the editor.

The cartoons, which first appeared in a Danish newspaper in September, have triggered deadly protests across the Muslim world. One caricature shows Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban with an ignited fuse, reports the AP.

I.L.