An imam and a solicitor who asked questions on the BBC’s Conservative leadership debate have been suspended from their jobs after they were criticised over past comments on social media.

Abdullah Patel, an imam and deputy head teacher, was suspended from the private Al-Ashraf primary school and the Masjid Umar mosque, both in Gloucester, on Wednesday, after it emerged he had made negative comments about Zionists and said women needed “to be smarter” to avoid being assaulted.

Aman Thakar, an employment lawyer, was suspended by the City firm Leigh Day in relation to a tweet in which he said Hitler’s worst legacy was “his abuse of the term nationalism”. His employers said they were investigating, despite Thakar stating it was a parody of a speech by a rightwing US activist.

The controversy surrounding the members of the public who asked questions overshadowed the third round of voting in the Tory leadership contest.

Sources quoted by the Times, Telegraph and Mail claimed that some of the campaigns were unhappy with the BBC’s handling of the event, and were threatening to boycott future debates hosted by the corporation, such as a planned episode of Question Time with the final two candidates.

The often noisy and chaotic discussion was the first debate to feature Boris Johnson, who had refused to take part in Sunday night’s programme on Channel 4.

But it was the aftermath, involving scrutiny of the people who asked the questions, which left the BBC justifying the right of members of the public to ask questions on television regardless of their political backgrounds.

Some BBC News insiders questioned whether they owed a duty of care to warn members of the public who appear on political programmes that they are likely to have their social media and political backgrounds scrutinised.Patel questioned the five candidates about the impact of politicians’ words on Islamophobia in the UK – a nod to Johnson’s comments about women who wear the burqa resembling “letterboxes” and “bank robbers”.

His question, which urged them to accept that “words have consequences” prompted one of the candidates, Sajid Javid, to get all of his rivals to commit to commissioning an independent investigation into Islamophobia in the Conservative party should they win the contest.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Abdullah Patel appearing during the TV debate. Photograph: BBC/PA

It subsequently emerged that Patel had previously tweeted: “Every political figure on the Zionist’s payroll is scaring the world about [Jeremy] Corbyn. They don’t like him. He seems best suited to tackle them!”

He also tweeted a map of the US, suggesting Israel should be moved there as a solution to the conflict with Palestine.

In another tweet, Patel said women needed “to be smarter” to avoid being assaulted, saying: “Don’t be alone with a man!”

On Wednesday, Yakub Patel, the chair of Al-Madani Educational Trust, which runs Al-Ashraf primary school, said: “Following some of the comments attributed to Mr Patel in the media this morning, the trust has decided to suspend him from all school duties with immediate effect until a full investigation is carried out. The school and trust do not share the views attributed to him.”

His mosque said it had “chosen to give him some time away” while it investigated.

Javid responded to the details of the imam’s past tweets by saying he “should practise what he preaches. Words do indeed have consequences.”

Thakar initially came under scrutiny for having stood as a Labour council candidate and briefly worked for the party. He had said on the programme that whichever candidate won would have no mandate from the general public, and asked them: “When will you do the right thing and call a general election?”

The BBC said it had known Thakar had done some work for Labour before putting him on the programme, but more controversy ensued when it emerged that he had tweeted: “Hitler’s abuse of the term nationalism is, to me a nationalist, the most harmful part of his legacy.”

Thakar apologised for any offence caused, but said he was making a sarcastic comment about a speech made by Candace Owens, a conservative US activist, in which she said: “Whenever we say ‘nationalism’ the first thing people think about, at least in America, is Hitler. You know, he was a national socialist, but if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, OK, fine.”

Speaking about Patel, a BBC spokesperson said: “We carried out background research into the online and social media profiles of all our questioners for last night’s debate. After the debate, one individual reactivated a public Twitter account he had previously deactivated, whose tweets were not visible during our research period. Had we been aware of the views he expressed there, he would not have been selected.”

The BBC Radio 5 Live presenter Nicky Campbell apologised for having Patel on his programme on Wednesday morning. “His social media comments have been extremely disturbing. We should have checked. We didn’t. I’m sorry,” he said.

Patel told BBC Gloucester he did not remember all of his tweets, adding: “I have not criticised the Jewish community … criticism of Israel is not the same as criticism of Jews.”​