A full blown war of words is raging between Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) supremo Mohan Bhagwat and a top Catholic body over who invented the word "lynching".

Taking umbrage to Bhagwat's remarks linking the term lynching to Christianity, the All India Catholic Union (AICU) has issued a detailed statement lashing out at both the RSS and the country's ruling BJP and questioned Bhagwat's "political intentions" behind the remark.

At the foundation day function of the RSS on 8 October, Bhagwat had spoken at length about the phenomenon of mob lynching. "No one from the Sangh gets into such troubles. If some such thing is about to happen, they in fact try to stop it.

Calling any association between Hinduism and lynching "a conspiracy", Bhagwat said the word comes from an incident in the Bible. According to him, once Jesus Christ asked people to hit a woman with stones, but only if they had never committed any sin themselves.

The influential Christian body hit back saying the purported association between the Bible and lynching made by Bhagwat, was to denigrate Christianity.

Suggesting that the RSS supremo didn't have a correct reading of the Bible, the AICU explained the event that Bhagwat referred to in order to hyphenate lynchings from Hinduism.

With Inputs From IANS