Ghaziabad, Mar 23 (PTI) The priest of a Ghaziabad temple, where a Muslim boy was thrashed for drinking water on its premises, targeted former president APJ Abdul Kalam on Tuesday over his religion, calling him a "jihadi".

"Any Muslim in the top echelons of the country cannot be pro-India and Kalam was a jihadi," Dasna Devi Temple's Yati Narsinghanad Saraswati told reporters in Aligarh.

Levelling allegations without substance, he accused late Kalam of supplying the formula of the "atom bomb to Pakistan as DRDO chief".

"Kalam had formed a cell in the Rashtrapati Bhawan where any Muslim could file his grievance," the priest claimed.

In the thrashing incident, a man identified as Shirangi Nanad Yadav was arrested by police earlier.

In a video, Yadav was seen asking the boy his name, who said he was Asif. Yadav was then seen brutally thrashing him.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)