The Muzaffarpur police on 9th October recommended the closure of the “maliciously false” sedition case against 49 celebrities who wrote a letter to prime minister Narendra Modi in July, expressing anguish over the rising incidents of mob lynching. The police also opined filing of an FIR against the petitioner, lawyer Sudhir Kumar Ojha. The celebrities include film people like Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Shyam Benegal, Aparna Sen, Mani Ratnam, Anurag Kashyap and Soumitra Chatterjee.
Earlier, on 8th, 185 other celebrities, including Naseeruddin Shah, issued a statement endorsing the letter of the celebrities.
The Muzaffarpur police asked the Bihar police to book Ojha under sections 182 and 211 of the IPC for providing wrong information. The FIR was filed on the orders of the Muzaffarpur chief judicial magistrate, Surya Kant Tiwari.
A day later, Ojha filed a protest petition in the Muzaffarpur magistrate court, objecting to the move of the police and also demanding a CBI probe into the matter.