FIRs filed against BJP's Mithun Chakraborty over alleged 'inflammatory' speech in Kolkata
Kolkata: Two cases have been registered against actor and BJP leader Mithun Chakraborty for making an inflammatory speech at the party's membership drive in Kolkata's Salt Lake, media reports said.
The complainant accused Chakraborty of making a speech "provocative in nature with the intention of breaching public tranquillity," reported India Today.
The FIRs were filed over Mithun Chakraborty’s speech on October 27 event where Union Home Minister Amit Shah was also present.
The complaint also stated that the speech "instigated communities to resort to violence and take up arms against each other".
The report said citing officials that Chakraborty has been has been charged with provocation with intent to cause a riot, promoting enmity between groups, outraging religious feelings, and criminal intimidation, among other offences under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and a probe has been started.
During a rally in Kolkata ahead of the by-polls to six Assembly seats next month, Chakraborty, 74, had referenced a pre-Lok Sabha inflammatory comment by the Trinamool's Humayun Kabir.
At the rally, Amit Shah also felicitated Chakraborty for receiving India’s highest film honour, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, which was conferred upon him by President Droupadi Murmu on October 8.
While Chakraborty has not commented on the cases, BJP state president and Union Minister Sukanta Majumdar has dubbed the FIRs a result of "vendetta politics".
He said the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal was using the police to target the “well-known actor and senior BJP leader Mithun Chakraborty".
He called the FIRs a tactics "to serve political interests" and asserted that the state government's actions were part of a larger conspiracy to stifle to malign political opponents.
"There is nothing provocative in his speech. These are nothing but attempts to intimidate him by using the police as a political tool," he was quoted as saying by India Today.
The Trinamool Congress hit back at the BJP, calling the allegations baseless, adding that the law will take its own course.
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