<span itemprop="image" itemscope="" itemtype="https://schema.org/ImageObject">
                                                        <meta itemprop="url" content="https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/10/kangana-rangoli-new.jpg"/><meta itemprop="width" content="1200"/><meta itemprop="height" content="667"/></span><span class="custom-caption"> <span class="ie-custom-caption">Actor Kangana Ranaut with her sister Rangoli Chandel. [Instagram/Rangoli Chandel]</span></span>POLICE REGISTERED an FIR against actor Kangana Ranaut and her sister Rangoli Chandel at Bandra on Saturday afternoon, based on a private complaint filed before a metropolitan court.

The women were booked under sections pertaining to committing malicious or deliberate acts with the intention of outraging religious feelings of citizens, sedition, promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence or language and common intention of the Indian Penal Code.

According to police, the FIR states that through their tweets, the sisters tried to “malign the Indian Constitution and image of the Maharashtra government, hurt sentiments of Muslims and tried to create division between Hindus and Muslims”.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone IX) Abhishek Trimukhe said the investigating officer would begin gathering evidence and verify the allegations made in the complaint.

The complaint filed before the court stated that Ranaut was “creating divisions between communities and spreading communal hatred”. The court had ordered an FIR to be registered against the sisters on Friday.

“On prima facie perusal of complaint and submissions… I found the cognizable offence has been committed by the accused. Total allegations are based upon comment on electronic media, Twitter and interviews. The accused used social media like Twitter. Thorough investigation is necessary by the expert… search and seizure is necessary in this case,” Metropolitan Magistrate Jaydeo Khule said in his order. He had directed the concerned police station to investigate the complaint.

The complaint was filed by Munawwar Ali Sayyed, a casting director and fitness trainer. In his complaint, he stated that he had worked with well-known film directors and had, for the past few months, been observing on social media that Ranaut “is continuously defaming Bollywood film industry and is portraying people working in Bollywood films as a hub of nepotism, favouritism, drug addicts, communally-biased people, murderers, etc” through her tweets and television interviews. “…(this) is creating a very bad image of Bollywood in the minds of people and even creating a communal divide and rift between people of two communities and in the mind of common man”.

He also stated that a rift was being created between artistes of different religions. The complaint referred to various tweets by Ranaut over the past few months, including a tweet where she referred to Mumbai as POK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir).

The complainant also stated, “Police investigation is necessary to ascertain the real motive behind such hate tweets, and who are the people backing such hatred to create communal tension and sentiments.”

Lawyer Rizwan Siddiquee, representing Ranaut, said, “This shall be dealt with on merits as per procedure of law. Right of speech and expression should not be construed as promoting communal disharmony.”

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