Two police complaints have been filed against Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan over his statements against Indian Army personnel, PTI reported on Friday.

While addressing party workers in Rampur on Tuesday, the controversial politician had said that excesses committed by security forces in places like Kashmir, Tripura, Jharkhand and West Bengal had forced “women to chop off the private parts of Army men”.

Two separate police complaints were lodged at the Hazratganj and Gautampalli police stations in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has demanded that the Samajwadi Party dismiss Khan for “dividing the country” on religious lines.

His remarks had also triggered protests across the state – Hindu Jagran Manch workers burnt an effigy of the politician in Sambhal and demanded that he be tried for treason.

Khan is known for making contentious comments. On May 28, he had said girls should avoid places where they can be molested. In December 2016, he had to offer an unconditional apology in the Supreme Court for calling a gangrape in Bulandshahr, where highway robbers had assaulted a minor girl and her mother, a “political conspiracy”.

In October 2015, he had blamed mobile phones for the rising number of rape cases in India.

In another incident in 2015, the SP leader had allegedly advised a rape survivor, who had approached him for help, to not seek “fame and attention” for her “disgrace”. The woman had complained that three men had raped her in a moving car and stabbed her husband.