FIR lodged against celebrities who wrote to PM on mob lynching
04 Oct 2019
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The Bihar police on Thursday lodged a First Information Report (FIR) in Muzaffarpur against nearly 50 celebrities, including Ramachandra 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 killing, police said.
The FIR follows a court order passed by Chief Judicial Magistrate Surya Kant Tiwari two months ago on a petition filed by 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 the Sadar police station," Ojha said.
As many as 49 celebrities who signed the open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on growing incidents of mob violence have been booked for “tarnishing the image of the country” and “supporting secessionist tendencies,” among others.
Ojha said nearly 50 signatories of the letter were named as accused in his petition in which they allegedly “tarnished the image of the country and undermined the impressive performance of the prime minister” besides “supporting secessionist tendencies,” among others.
The police said the FIR was lodged under sections of the Indian Penal Code, including those relating to sedition, public nuisance, hurting religious feelings and insulting with an intent to provoke breach of peace.
In the open letter to PM the celebrities had said that the lynching of Muslims, Dalits and other minorities must be stopped immediately, while stressing that there was “no democracy without dissent.”
At the same time, the open letter justified cases of violence against the chanting of `Jai Shri Ram’ saying that it had been reduced to a “provocative war cry”.
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