An anti-upper caste post by a Dalit teacher irked BJP leaders so much that they forced the former to seek forgiveness by touching the feet of a senior party leader in Uttar Pradesh's Aligarh district.
The Dalit teacher, incidentally, had to suffer this humiliation inside a police station in front of the cops, who also reportedly threatened him with dire consequences if he did not apologise in the way desired by the saffron party leaders.
The Dalit man, who teaches at Shivdan Singh Inter College at Iglas area in the district, had a few days ago, written a post on Facebook in which he had criticised the upper castes for discriminating against the lower castes.
Enraged over the post, a BJP leader lodged a complaint against the man with the police.
The police summoned the teacher to the police station on Tuesday on the pretext of resolving the matter.
However, the teacher, to his shock, found several BJP leaders sitting at the police station.
The man was threatened both by the police and local saffron party leaders with serious consequences if he did not seek their forgiveness.
The teacher apologised with folded hands but it was not accepted by the BJP leaders.
The teacher was forgiven only after he touched the feet of BJP Aligarh division president Kalicharan Gour.
The matter came to light when a video showing the Dalit teacher touching Gour's feet went viral on the social media.
Police officers in Aligarh said that an investigation had been launched into the incident.