Shyam Benegal is amomg the signatories of the open letter to PM Modi.

Veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal, who is among the 49 eminent personalities against whom a complaint has been filed for alleged sedition, today said the case makes no sense since their open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over growing incidents of mob violence was an appeal and not any threat.

"The letter was an appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is not a threat or anything that will cause disturbance of peace or enmity between communities," Mr Benegal told news agency PTI.

"It is a question of why it the FIR was accepted. What does it mean? Is it a threat to the PM or to the government or anyone? There is nothing," he added.

The open letter to PM, signed by eminent personalities like Anurag Kashyap, Aparna Sen, Mani Ratnam, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Soumitra Chatterjee, Shubha Mudgal and historian Ramchandra Guha, had said the killing of Muslims, Dalits and other minorities must be stopped immediately, while stressing there was "no democracy without dissent".

It also noted that the ''Jai Shri Ram'' slogan was reduced to a "provocative war cry."