Muzaffarpur, October 4
An FIR was lodged here on Thursday against nearly 50 celebrities, including Ramchandra Guha, Mani Ratnam and Aparna Sen, who had written an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi raising concern over the growing incidents of mob lynching, the police said.
The case was lodged after an order was passed by Chief Judicial Magistrate Surya Kant Tiwari two months ago on a petition filed by a local advocate Sudhir Kumar Ojha.
“The CJM had passed the order on August 20, accepting my petition upon the receipt of which an FIR was lodged today at Sadar police station,” said Ojha.
He said nearly 50 signatories of the letter were named as accused in his plea in which they allegedly “tarnished the image of the country and undermined the impressive performance of the PM”, besides “supporting secessionist tendencies”.
The police said the FIR was lodged under IPC sections, including those relating to sedition, public nuisance, hurting religious feelings and insulting with an intent to provoke breach of peace.
The letter was written by 49 personalities, including filmmakers Mani Ratnam, Anurag Kashyap, Shyam Benegal, actor Soumitra Chatterjee and vocalist Shubha Mudgal in July this year. It had said that the lynching of Muslims, Dalits and other minorities must be stopped, while stressing that there was “no democracy without dissent”. It noted that Jai Shri Ram had been reduced to a “provocative war cry”. — PTI
‘Everybody knows what’s going on’
Wayanad: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi lashed out at BJP government, saying anybody who says anything against PM Modi or the government is put behind bars. “Everybody knows what is going on in the country. It’s not a secret. In fact the whole world knows it. We are moving into an authoritarian state. It’s pretty clear,” he said.
‘Probe social media trend celebrating Godse’
Who seeks to defile the memory of Mahatma Gandhi by celebrating his assassins? Who were the people behind social media trend “Godse Amar rahe” on October 2. We want a probe into this. We also want to know why the government didn’t take a suo motu cognisance of this issue? —Manish Tewari, Cong spokesman