The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday expelled a leader of its youth wing for offering Rs 5 lakh to anyone who cut off Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar’s tongue. Reports said the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha's Badaun district president Kuldeep Varshney accused Kumar of insulting the country and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his speech at JNU on Thursday, before saying his tongue should be cut off. Kumar was arrested on charges of sedition on February 12 and released on interim bail on Thursday. He has been critical of the BJP government at the Centre since his release. A fringe group Purvanchal Sena also put up posters offering a reward of Rs 11 lakh to anyone who killed the JNUSU president.

Kumar was charged with sedition after he allegedly shouted anti-national slogans at a protest condemning the hanging of Parliament attacks convict Afzal Guru. The Delhi Police maintain that Kumar did raise those slogans, in spite of admitting that they do not have any video evidence to prove it. Two other JNU students, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, are in judicial custody for also allegedly chanting anti-national slogans at the same February 9 event.

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PTI reported that the Delhi Police has asked the university to inform them about Kumar’s visits outside the campus, as part of efforts to provide him security. Kumar was attacked by men in lawyers' robes in the Patiala House Court premises when he was taken for his hearing.

Though the Centre has stood by its views that anti-national behaviour should be punished, Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma on Saturday said that the recent controversy surrounding Kumar's arrest and the sedition cases against JNU students does impact the country's tourism sector. He said, "I agree with your views that the country's image gets tarnished because of such incidents. We must all work together for the formation of a strong nation. And the tourism industry definitely suffers because of such incidents."