'Govt has nothing to do with FIR against celebrities who wrote open letter to Modi'

Government has not lodged any case, said Prakash Javadekar

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Reacting to the criticism over the FIR lodged against nearly 50 celebrities, including Ramchandra Guha, Anurag Kashyap, Mani Ratnam and Aparna Sen, who had written an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi raising concern over the growing incidents of mob lynching, Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar on Saturday said the government has nothing to do with it.

"Government has not lodged any case. An individual went to the court which has passed an order," the minister said, according to PTI.

The July 23 letter, which also stressed that there is "no democracy without dissent", was signed by 49 celebrities from various fields. "We, as peace loving and proud Indians, are deeply concerned about a number of tragic events that have been happening in recent times in our beloved country," the open letter to Modi said.

"The lynching of Muslims, dalits and other minorities must be stopped immediately. We were shocked to learn from the NCRB that there have been no less than 840 instances of atrocities against dalits in the year 2016, and a definite decline in the percentage of convictions," it continued.

The case was lodged in Muzaffarpur of Bihar after an order was passed by Chief Judicial Magistrate Surya Kant Tiwari two months ago on a petition filed by local advocate Sudhir Kumar Ojha.

"The CJM had passed the order on August 20, accepting my petition upon the receipt of which an FIR was lodged today at the Sadar police station here," Ojha had said.

He said nearly 50 signatories of the letter were named as accused in his petition in which they allegedly "tarnished the image of the country and undermined the impressive performance of the prime minister" besides "supporting secessionist tendencies".

The police said the FIR was lodged under sections of the Indian Penal Code, including those relating to sedition, public nuisance, hurting religious feelings and insulting with an intent to provoke breach of peace.

(With PTI inputs)