india

Updated: Oct 06, 2019 01:20 IST

A case of sedition and breach of peace has been registered against 49 eminent persons, who, on July 24, wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing concern over what they called growing incidents of mob lynching and “religious identity-based hate crimes”, at a police station in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur, officials said on Friday.

Mithlesh Kumar Jha, station house officer of Sadar police station, said an FIR was registered on the orders of the chief judicial magistrate’s court, where lawyer S K Ojha filed a petition in July, claiming that the celebrities and academicians tried to allegedly “tarnish the image of the country and undermined the impressive performance of the prime minister” besides “supporting secessionist tendencies”.

A habitual petitioner, Ojha 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.

The FIR filed on Friday cited the letter written by eminent persons, including historian Ramchandra Guha, filmmakers Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Anurag Kashyap etc, expressing concern over alleged incidents of mob lynching against Dalits and minorities and claiming that “Jai Shri Ram” was reduced to a “provocative war cry”.

Jha said the FIR has been lodged for sedition, assertions prejudicial to national integration and public nuisance. “These are under non-bailable sections, meaning the accused will have to seek bail from a court,” he said.

The FIR lists six witnesses in the case, including actress Kangna Ranaut, filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri and director Madhur Bhandarkar, who were among 61 celebrities to issue a rejoinder to the July 26 letter.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday said “anybody who says anything against Narendra Modi or the government” is put behind bars. “Everybody knows what is going on in the country. It’s not a secret...We are moving into an authoritarian state,” Gandhi said.

Most of the celebrities and academicians, who had signed the letter to PM, expressed dismay at registration of the case.

Reacting to the news, Adoor Gopalakrishnan said if the news was true, one will have to suspect the legal system. “Will any court admit such a petition based on a letter which was meant to express ones fears about happenings in the country?” he asked.

Filmmaker Shyam Benegal said some good sense would prevail upon the judicial magistrate as there is no threat to the PM or the system. “I don’t know where this term sedition is coming from, unless they have changed the meaning of the word...,” he said.

Riddhi Sen, the youngest actor in the country to get a national award for best actor, expressed her shock at the registration of the case. Doctor and activist Binayak Sen, another signatory, refused to comment. So did Guha.

Sharpening his attack on the government, Rahul Gandhi said, “On one side, there is the idea that the country should be ruled by one man, one ideology and everybody else should shut up. On the other side, there is the Congress party and the Opposition who are saying no (to this) and that this country has many divergent views, different languages, cultures, many different expressions and those voices should not be crushed. That’s the main battle going on in the country.”

Supreme Court lawyer Gyanant Singh said Bihar court’s order to register the FIR, in all likelihood, would be quashed by a higher court. “The order is preposterous, because writing a letter to the PM, the alleged persons, only exercised their right to speech and expression and by no stretch of imagination can they be said to have an intention of committing offences like sedition and causing enmity,” he said.