Bharatiya Janata Party’s legal cell has filed defamation case against Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, for his ISI comments.

A defamation complaint was filed against the former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister by the ruling party in Delhi, for his alleged remark that the ‘BJP and Bajrang Dal were taking money from Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).’

Complaint by BJP Legal Cell convener Rajesh Kumar was filed before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal who listed the matter for consideration on October 9.

The petitioner stated that the senior Congress leader has committed a “grave offence” causing injury to the BJP, its leaders and the public at large by his defamatory statements.

“The language used in the statement is highly unethical, wherein the accused had caused mockery of the whole system. The statement that BJP is taking money from ISI naturally creates wrong impression in the minds of the general public as ISI is a spy agency of Pakistan, which is held to be inimical to India and who has established links with the several terror attacks in India. The comment of the accused has been made in categorical terms to defame the BJP party,” the plea said.

“This court may take cognizance of the grave offence committed by the accused person thereby causing injury to the BJP, its leaders and public at large,” the petitioner prayed.

Digvijaya Singh had made the remark on August 30 which received flak from the national party. In Uttar Pradesh’s Kushinagar, a criminal case has also been registered against Digvijay Singh at the Kasia police station. The case was registered on Wednesday by Divyendu Mani, son of BJP MLA Rajnikant Mani.

The case has been registered under Sections 153 A (promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language), 295 A (outraging religious feelings or any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), 298 (uttering, words, etc., with deliberate intent to wound the religious feelings of any person) and 505 (intent to incite, or which is likely to incite, any class or community of persons to commit any offence against any other class or community).

Divyendu Mani told reporters that Digvijaya Singh had hurt the sentiments of millions of Hindus and that too without any proof in hand. Speaking at a function in Madhya Pradesh in late August, Digvijaya Singh had said, “Those who wear saffron also commit rape. Some of these organisations are being funded by the ISI.”

The Lok Sabha election candidate from Bhopal had shared statistics from Congress party’s website which showed that the BJP has the highest number of legislators with cases of crimes against women levelled against them, including heinous crimes such as rapes and abduction.