Actor Kangana Ranaut has been summoned by the Delhi assembly’s panel on peace and harmony over her remarks against Sikhs, sources have said. Ms. Ranaut has been told to appear before the committee headed by Aam Aadmi Party leader Raghav Chadha on December 6.
“The committee has received numerous complaints eliciting inter alia, outrageously offensive and derogatory Instagram stories/posts allegedly published by yourself on 20.11.2021 over your official Instagram account…” the committee said in a notice signed by its deputy secretary to Ms. Ranaut.
The summons document said Ms. Ranaut’s “blanketly labelling (Sikhs) as Khalistani terrorists… has the potential to engender disharmony as well as cause wounding humiliation to the entire Sikh community.”
The actor also faces a first information report, or FIR, in Mumbai filed by Sikhs for using derogatory language against them on social media.
The police complaint filed by a Mumbai businessman, Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee leaders and the Shiromani Akali Dal alleged that Ms. Ranaut “intentionally and deliberately” portrayed the year-long protest by farmers against three new farm laws as a “Khalistani” movement and called them “Khalistani terrorists”.
“Khalistani terrorists may be arm twisting the government today… But let’s not forget one woman… The only woman prime minister ne inn ko apni jooti ke neeche crush kiya tha (the only woman PM who crushed them under her shoes). No matter how much suffering she caused to this nation… she crushed them like mosquitoes at the cost of her own life… Lekin desh k tukde nahi hone diye (but she did not let the nation get divided),” Ms. Ranaut had posted on Instagram.
Her post was seen as alluding to former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in October 1984. Nearly 3,000 were killed in the riots that broke out afterward, with groups of armed men targeting Sikhs across Delhi, and attacking and vandalising homes, shops and gurdwaras.
The actor has been a big critic of the protest by farmers, especially from Haryana and Punjab, against the three farm laws that the centre has now agreed to cancel.
