Kangana Ranaut, sister Rangoli booked for ‘spreading hatred’

On Friday, metropolitan magistrate Jaydeo Ghule, acting on a complaint filed by casting director Munawarali alias Sahil Sayyed, directed the police to initiate criminal proceedings against Kangana and her sister.

The Bandra police on Saturday registered a first information report (FIR) against Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut and her sister, Rangoli Chandel, for sedition and spreading communal hatred, a day after the Bandra metropolitan magistrate court issued an order to this effect.

Sayyed had alleged that over the last few months, Kangana, through her tweets and interviews, defamed the film industry by portraying Bollywood as a “hub of nepotism, favouritism, drug addicts, communally biased and murderers”. (PTI file photo)

On Friday, metropolitan magistrate Jaydeo Ghule, acting on a complaint filed by casting director Munawarali alias Sahil Sayyed, directed the police to initiate criminal proceedings against Kangana and her sister.

In his order, the magistrate said that a search and seizure may be necessary, and asked the police to take appropriate action under section 156(3) of Code of Criminal Procedure.

Sayyed had alleged that over the last few months, Kangana, through her tweets and interviews, defamed the film industry by portraying Bollywood as a “hub of nepotism, favouritism, drug addicts, communally biased and murderers”.

He alleged that her statements “created a bad image of Bollywood in the minds of people and even creating a communal divide and rift between people of two communities”. Kangana has been “maliciously bringing religion in all her tweets”, he added.

Targetting Rangoli, the casting director said that she had also tweeted objectionable posts intended to create a communal rift. Rangoli also works as Kangana’s manager.

Sayyed said that her tweets had hurt the feeling of the Muslim community in the country. He also quoted one of her tweets: “Make the Mullas and secular media stand in line and shoot them…the history may call us Nazis, who cares.”

The two were booked under sections 124(A) (sedition), 153(A) (promoting enmity between different groups on the ground of religion, race, place of birth, language etc) and 295(A) (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class) of the Indian Penal Code.

Following the FIR, the actor tweeted, “Who all are fasting on Navratris?...meanwhile another FIR filed against me, Pappu sena in Maharashtra seems to be obsessing over me, don’t miss me so much I will be there soon #Navratri.”

Rizwan Siddiquee, Ranaut’s lawyer, said, “The order passed by the learned magistrate shall be legally dealt with on ‘merits’ as per procedure of law. Right of speech and expression should not be construed as promoting communal disharmony...”