India Tomorrow
MUZAFFARNAGAR (BIHAR), OCTOBER 4—The police on Friday registered a criminal case against 50 celebrities including historian Ramchandra Guha and Bollwood personalities Konkana Sen, director Mani Ratnam, Aparna Sen and Shyam Benegal who had written an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing concern over increasing incidents of moblynching.
The FIR registered at the Muzaffarnagar Sadar Police station said that signatories in the letter had allegedly “tarnished the image of the country and undermined impressive performance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi”.
A police official at the Sadar Police Station told mediapersons that the case was lodged under sections of Indian Penal Code pertaining sedition, public nuisance, hurting religious sentiments and insulting with an intent to provoke breach of peace.
The FIR was lodged after an order was passed by Chief Judicial Magistrate S K Tiwari, on a petition filed by advocate S K Ojha. The CJM had passed the order on August 20.
Ojha told mediapersons that the open letter by signatories, besides “tarnishing image of the country”, was “supporting secessionist tendencies”.
In the letter the celebrities had stated that the lynching of Muslims, Dalits and other minorities must be stopped immediately, while stressing that there was “no democracy without dissent”. The letter also had said that “Jai Shri Ram” had been reduced to a “provocative war cry”.
