india

Updated: Oct 09, 2019 23:51 IST

PATNA: The Bihar police on Wednesday ordered closure of a sedition case filed against 49 eminent persons who, in July, wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing concern over what they called growing incidents of mob lynching and “religious identity-based hate crimes, official said.

Muzaffarpur senior superintendent of police (SSP) Manoj Kumar Sinha said he had issued the order as the investigation revealed that allegations were levelled out of “mischief” and “lacked substance”. The lawyer, Sudhir Kumar Ojha who had filed the case, will be booked for filing a frivolous complaint, the police said.

A first information report (FIR) was lodged at the Sadar police station last week on the orders of the chief judicial magistrate court which had forwarded a petition filed by Ojha, claiming that the celebrities and academicians had tried to allegedly “tarnish the image of the country and undermined the impressive performance of the prime minister” besides “supporting secessionist tendencies”.

The case against the eminent persons, including historian Ramchandra Guha, filmmakers Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Anurag Kashyapa among others had sparked nationwide outrage.

Additional director of police (headquarters) Jitendra Kumar said the police would move court seeking Ojha’s prosecution under sections 182 and 211(relating to false information or false charge of offence) of the Indian Penal Code .

During supervision of the case by SSP Manoj Kumar, the complainant could not produce supporting documents or evidence, not even the alleged letter written by the persons named as accused.

A habitual petitioner, Ojha had on September 28 petitioned a court seeking its order for the registration of a case against Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan for his speech on Kashmir at United Nations General Assembly.