Mumbai: More than 180 members of the cultural community, including actor Naseeruddin Shah, cinematographer Anand Pradhan among others, condemned the FIR lodged against 49 celebrities for an open letter they wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The open letter has come in wake of an FIR which was filed in Bihar's Muzaffarpur against 49 celebrities including the likes of Mani Ratnam, Anurag Kashyap, Aparna Sen, Shyam Benegal and Shubha Mudgal, who had written an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi raising concern over the growing incidents of mob lynching.
In a new letter issued on Monday, October 7, the eminent personalities questioned how writing an open letter to the prime minister could be called "an act of sedition".
"An FIR has been lodged against forty-nine of our colleagues in the cultural community, simply because they performed their duty as respected members of civil society. They wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister, expressing concern about mob lynching in our country."
"Can this be called an act of sedition? Or is harassment by misusing the courts a ploy to silence citizens' voices?" the letter read.
"All of us, as members of the Indian cultural community, as citizens of conscience, condemn such harassment. We do more: we endorse every word of the letter our colleagues wrote to the Prime Minister," the letter further read.
The eminent personalities also promised that they will continue to speak up against silencing of "people's voices" and against the misuse of courts to harass citizens.
The FIR was lodged on October 3 under several sections of the Indian Penal Code, including those related to sedition, public nuisance, hurting religious feelings and insulting with an intent to provoke breach of peace.
The letter had stated that the lynching of Muslims, Dalits and other minorities must be stopped immediately, while stressing that there was "no democracy without dissent". It also noted that the chant "Jai Shri Ram" had been reduced to a "provocative war cry".
The 49 personalities were accused of having "tarnished the image of the country and undermined the impressive performance of the prime minister", besides "supporting secessionist tendencies".
