After Bollywood filmmaker Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri sent a legal notice to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, alleging that she defamed his film The Kashmir Files, the BJP claimed that people who want to watch the movie, The Kerala Story, are being assaulted in her state.
BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya shared a video that showed the police taking away two people by force from what appears to be a theatre.
On Monday, Banerjee claimed that some "stars nominated and funded by the BJP" are working on a film called "Bengal Files".
"They came to Bengal also with some distorted, concocted stories. They are preparing a film 'Bengal Files'. If they can prepare The Kashmir Files to condemn Kashmiri people... Now they have defamed Kerala people and the Kerala state also," she had said in Kolkata, referring to the recent controversy over The Kerala Story.
The CM ordered a ban on the screening of The Kerala Story and criticised The Kashmir Files as a movie made to humiliate one section of society.
In the legal notice, the director claimed that the chief minister made the remarks to "gain easy popularity among the so-called seculars in the country" and “to see that the Bengal genocide does not see the light of the day and to keep the public at large in dark on the said issue”.
Malviya backed the move by Agnihotri saying it was "much needed." He shared a tweet by the filmmaker in which he disclosed that he sent a legal notice to the CM "for her false & highly defamatory statements made with malafide intention to defame us & our films."
"This was much needed. Mamata Banerjee is trampling on civil liberties and freedom of speech with impunity in West Bengal. People are getting assaulted for wanting to watch a movie. Filmmakers are being threatened and ascribed motives to. We need to move urgently to restore some semblance of rule of law in Bengal,” the BJP leader said in a tweet.