PATNA: Muzaffarpur police in compliance with a local court directive today lodged an FIR against 49 personalities including Ramachandra Guha, Mani Ratnam and Aparna Sen, who had written an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi raising concern over the growing incidents of mob killing.
These celebrities, academicians and social activists had penned an open letter in July to the Prime Minister for taking effective measures to combat mob lynchings.
A complaint was filed by a local lawyer Sudhir K Ojha in the court of Muzaffarpur's Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) two months ago in which the CJM court had passed an order on August 20 to lodge an FIR.
The Sadar police lodged the FIR on Thursday under different relevant sections of the IPC.
Sudhir K Ojha told the media that 49 signatories of the letter have been named as accused in the FIR allegedly for tarnishing the country's image by writing such an open letter.
As per police sources, the FIR has been lodged under sections of the IPC relating to sedition and hurting religious sentiments.
The signatories include film personalities like Shyam Benegal, Soumitro Chatterjee, Revathy, and Anurag Kashyap, vocalist Shubha Mudgal, social activist Binayak Sen, sociologist Ashis Nandy and author Amit Chaudhury, among others.