49 celebs face sedition charge for letter to PM on lynching

An FIR has been lodged in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur against 49 prominent personalities, including writer Ramchandra Guha, actor Aparna Sen and director Adoor Gopalakrishnan for writing an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and raising concerns over incidents of mob lynching in the country.

The police registered the case on Thursday following an order by Chief Judicial Magistrate Surya Kant Tiwary. The CJM court passed the order while hearing a petition filed by social activist and lawyer Sudhir Kumar Ojha who said that the “letter has tarnished the country’s image.”

Talking to this newspaper on the phone, Ojha said that the case has been filed under section 124 B which amounts to sedition, 153 B, 160, 290, 297 and 504 of the Indian Penal Code. “In the beginning, I was not aware of the letter but after they released it on social media I was deeply hurt. I felt that through the letter these intellectuals were trying to tarnish the image of our country,” the petitioner said.

The signatories of the letter also included prominent filmmakers like Anurag Kashyap, Shyam Benegal and Mani Ratnam, actors Soumitra Chatterjee, Konkana Sen and Revathy and singer Shubha Mudgal.

“The Chief Judicial Magistrate accepted my petition and passed the order following which the FIR was registered against all these prominent personalities. The investigation report is to be submitted by November 11, after which the court will decide their fate,” lawyer Sudhir Kumar Ojha said.

The move to file sedition charges against celebrities is likely to cause a flutter in political circles here.