Mumbai:Mumbai Police on Wednesday issued notices to Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut and her sister Rangoli Chandel, asking them to appear before cops next week to record their statements in connection with a case filed against them for allegedly promoting enmity between communities through their remarks, an official said.
The Bandra Metropolitan Magistrate's court had on Saturday ordered the police to investigate a complaint filed by Munawwar Ali Sayyed, a Bollywood casting director and fitness trainer, which referred to Ranaut's and her sister's tweets and other statements.
On the directions of the court, Bandra Police had registered a First Information Report against Ranaut and her sister under IPC sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, etc), 295A (deliberate acts hurting religious sentiments) and 124-A (sedition), 34 (common intention), the police official said.
"We have issued notices to Ranaut and her sister, asking them to appear before the police in connection with the FIR registered against them. They have been asked to remain present on Monday and Tuesday," he said.
In the complaint submitted before the court, Sayyed had alleged that Ranaut has been defaming Bollywood for the last two months by calling it a "hub of nepotism", "favouritism", etc, through her tweets and television interviews.
She also tweeted "very objectionable" comments, which not only hurt his religious sentiments, but also the feelings of many artists and she was trying to divide artists on communal lines, the complainant had alleged.
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Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
