A first-class court of judicial magistrates in Karnataka’s Tumkur district ordered state police on Friday to record a first information report against actress Kangana Ranaut for her tweets about farmers’ agitations against the new agricultural laws, Living law reported. Ranaut had called the protesting farmers terrorists.
Attorney Ramesh Naik L filed a complaint under article 156 (3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which empowers a magistrate to initiate an investigation by a police officer.
The matter relates to a tweet posted by the actor on September 21, in which he compared the farmers to “rioters” who protested the Citizenship Amendment Act and accused them of “causing terror in the nation.”
“The people who are spreading misinformation and rumors about CAA that caused riots are the same people who are now spreading misinformation about the Farmers Bill and causing terror in the nation, they are terrorists,” Ranaut had tweeted. “You know very well what I said but you just like to spread disinformation.”
The allegation alleged that the actor made such irritating statements with the clear intention of harming people who oppose the farmers’ bills, “giving senseless provocations with the intention of causing riots.” In addition, he alleged that Ranaut’s tweet could possibly lead to “a collision between different groups.”
Naik added that neither the police nor the government had so far taken any action to prevent the actress from making such statements and had not registered any cases against her. Therefore, the defender demanded that a FIR be registered under Articles 153A (creating discord or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill will between different words), 504 (intentional insult with the intention of causing a breach of public order) and 108 ( a person instigates a crime) of the Indian Penal Code against Ranaut.
Weeks after Parliament passed three controversial agricultural bills, protests against the laws continue to rage in Punjab and Haryana. When two of the pieces of legislation were presented during a chaotic session in Parliament on September 20, some opposition MPs claimed that they would prove to be the “death sentence” for the agricultural sector. President Ram Nath Kovind approved the bills on September 27, after which they became law.
Critics say that these new agricultural policies will cause farmers to lose guaranteed purchase prices for their crops, to the benefit of large corporations. Most opposition parties and farmers’ organizations across the country have strongly opposed the bills.
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