A lawyer in Punjab has sent a defamation notice to actor Kangana Ranaut for her tweet mischievously identifying an elderly protesting farmer as Shaheen Bagh’s Bilkis Dadi.
In her tweet, now deleted, Kangana had shared a photo of an elderly lady taking part in a protest march against the controversial Farm Laws passed by the Centre’s BJP government. Her tweet had read, “Ha ha ha, she is the same dadi who featured in Time magazine for being the most powerful Indian… And she is available in 100 rupees. Pakistani journos have hijacked international PR for India in an embarrassing way. We need our own people to speak for us internationally.”
However, faced with condemnation, the controversial actor had deleted the tweet. Fact-check website Boom Live had established her claim was fake.
“Farmers have left their farming to participate in the dharna. They aren’t daily wage workers. Kangana should refrain from lying about me and farmers,” Mohinder Kaur tells BOOM exclusively, who was misidentified by @KanganaTeam as Shaheen Bagh’s dadi Bilkis Bano. #FakeNews pic.twitter.com/2zaHkbXhxh
— BOOM Live (@boomlive_in) December 2, 2020
In his defamation notice, lawyer Harkam Singh wrote, “It is to inform you that the said lady is not a fake lady. Her name is Mahinder Kaur and she belongs to Bathinda. She is the wife of farmer Labh Singh Nambardar. She in her life, has always remained connected with fields and filed work and she is the wife of a farmer.”
Singh later told news agency ANI, “I sent a legal notice for a tweet misidentifying Ms Mohinder Kaur as Bilkis Bano with an insinuation that she (Ms Kaur) was available as a hired protestor for Rs 100. The notice gives Ranaut 7 days to issue an apology failing which a defamation case will be pursued.”
Meanwhile, the Delhi Police detained Shaheen Bagh’s Dadi on Tuesday when she arrived at the Delhi-Haryana border to extend her support to the farmers.
