After a criminal complaint was lodged against the 9 of the 49 signatories who addressed a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on increasing incidents of mob lynching in the country, filmmaker Anurag Kashyap opened up on Twitter on the matter.
"If one letter can impact them so much that they need an entire troll army to keep digging out false narratives & throw various accusations continuously at signatories to counter the truth, imagine what would happen if we start questioning every self-serving action of the regime," Anurag tweeted.
He ended his post in another tweet reading- #stoplynchings.
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The 'Gangs of Wasseypur' director's statement came in the wake of a criminal complaint filed in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate Sury Kant Tiwari by a city-based lawyer Sudhir Ojha. He, on Saturday, filed the case against nine people including Konkona Sen Sharma and Aparna Sen.
According to the complainant against nine celebrities including Konkona Sen Sharma and Aparna Sen, the case has been filed under Sections 124a (sedition), 153B (assertions prejudicial to national integration), 290 (public nuisance), 297 (trespass to wound religious feelings), 504 (intentional insults) of the India Penal Code (IPC).
"The magistrate has accepted the case and will hear it on August 3," the complainant lawyer told .
He alleged that the intellectuals' letter is a threat to national integrity and intends to malign India's image abroad.
Ojha said: "I have alleged that 49 intellectuals who have written an open letter to the Prime Minister have tried to malign the country's image abroad. They are trying to break this country into pieces in collusion with separatists."
Expressing concern over instances of mob violence against Muslims and Dalits, 49 intellectuals wrote an open letter on July 23 to Prime Minister Modi demanding to ensure "exemplary punishment" for the perpetrators of such crimes.
Signatories to the letter include Shubha Mudgal, actor Konkona Sen Sharma, and filmmakers Shyam Benegal, Anurag Kashyap, and M Ratnam, among others.
The letter also highlighted that 'Jai Shri Ram' is becoming a "provocative war-cry".
In response to the letter, the government has said that Dalits and minorities are safe in the country and that those who are "yet to recover" from the defeat in the Lok Sabha polls are trying to communalise "criminal incidents".
( With inputs from ANI )