A piece of news came on Saturday that a petition was filed in a Bihar court against those 49 eminent citizens, who had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the trend of the lynching of people like minorities and hate crimes, asking slapping of sedition and other charges.
This all started when 49 people, including celebrities, wrote to PM Modi and asked questions against mob lynching going on rapidly in few of the states of India.
They all asked questions in an open letter, signed by social activists, filmmakers, and artists like Adoor Gopalkrishnan, Anurag Kashyap, Mani Ratnam, Binayak Sen, Aparna Sen, Soumitro Chatterjee, Konkana Sen Sharma, Shyam Benegal, Revathy, Shubha Mudgal, Anupam Roy, Parambrata, Rupam Islam, and Riddhi Sen to name a few.
The letter expresses deep concern over the growing trend and also demanded non-bailable, exemplary punishment for those found guilty of the crime.
The letter reads:
Well, it happened long ago as recently, on the same subject around sixty-two personalities, including actor Kangana Ranaut, classical dancer Sonal Mansingh, and CBFC chief Prasoon Joshi have written an open letter against the "selective outrage and false narratives" of 49 celebrities who had earlier penned an open letter to PM Modi over lynching incidents in the country.
The letter by 62 personalities reads,
“An open letter which has been published on July 23 2019, and addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi has astonished us. Forty-nine self-styled 'guardians' and 'conscience keepers' of the nation and of democratic values have once again expressed selective concern and demonstrated a clear political bias and motive.”
All these 62 celebs termed the letter on lynching incidents a "document of selective outrage" that evolves across as an attempt to,
"foist a FALSE NARRATIVE with the intention of denigrating the democratic ethos and norms of our collective functioning as a nation and people.
It is aimed at tarnishing India's international standing and to negatively portray Prime Minister Modi's untiring efforts to effectuate governance on the foundations of positive nationalism and humanism which is the core of INDIANNESS."
It added,
"The signatories to the 'open letter' have, in the past, kept silent when tribals and the marginalised have become victims of Naxal terror, they have kept silent when separatists have issued dictates to burn schools in Kashmir, they have kept silent when the demand for dismembering India, for making pieces of her -Tukde Tukde - were made, they kept silent when slogans chanted by terrorists and terror groups were echoed in some leading university campuses in the country."
And, now an advocate, Sudhir Kumar Ojha, filed a petition before the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate under different sections of the Indian Penal Code, relating to sedition, imputations, and assertions prejudicial to national-integration and hurting religious feelings.
Petitioner has also named directors Madhur Bhandarkar and Vivek Agnihotri, and actress Kangana Ranaut who were among 61 high-profile personalities to counter the letter, as "witnesses."
In his petition, Ojha claimed that the 49 people who wrote the letter had, "tarnished the image of the country and undermining the impressive performance of the Prime Minister" by their actions, and also charged them with "supporting secessionist tendencies."
And, on August 3, the matter is likely to come up for hearing.
