If yoga comes into the life of every common people, it will help in bringing down incidents of rape in the country, veteran BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi on Sunday said.

In a remark that may spark a controversy, he also said that Muslims do yoga five times in a day and termed "Prophet Mohammad as the greatest yogi".

"I believe if yoga comes into the life of common people, then the daily incidents of rape, I would not say, they will cease to exist, but there will definitely be a decrease in them. It will create a new way of thinking amongst men and women. Changing the way one feels for a human body...that the body is such a machine which nature has given us for some larger work... people's attention will go towards this," he said. He was speaking during a seminar on the "The Iyengar way - Yoga for the new millennium".

Referring to an experiment done in New York on transcendental medication introduced by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Joshi said that when a vice chancellor of a university reviewed it, it was found that the crime rate in New York had come down while the inmates in jails had undergone change in their behavior.

"Our Muslim brothers do yoga five times in a day. The postures of 'namaz'...in that two or three postures, even you will be able to tell (which are they). That is why I think Mohammad sahab was a great yogi. As this prescription is of praying to god...connecting it to yoga, he could not have done it without practising yoga," he said.

Referring to the government's focus on skill development, Joshi said that that there should be coordinated group between various ministries including Ayush, Education, Health and Skills which would see how yoga can be utilized in ones social and economic life.