Filmmakers Aparna Sen, Shyam Benegal and Adoor Gopalakrishnan have expressed disappointment after a Muzaffarpur court ordered an FIR for sedition to be lodged against them and the other celebrities who wrote an open letter to PM Modi regarding the growing incidents of mob lynching, police said.

“This is pure harassment, it is just harassment and nothing else,” Sen said, speaking to The Quint.

The case was lodged after Chief Judicial Magistrate Surya Kant Tiwari passed an order in response to a petition filed two months ago by local advocate Sudhir Kumar Ojha.

“The CJM had passed the order on 20 August, accepting my petition upon the receipt of which an FIR was lodged today at the Sadar police station here,” Ojha said.

He said nearly 50 signatories of the letter, including historian Ramchandra Guha, actor Konkona Sen Sharma and filmmaker Mani Ratnam, 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”.