A man, who originally filed a complaint against Raveena Tandon, Farah Khan and Bharti Singh of The Kapil Sharma Show last year, has demanded an immediate arrest of the three celebrities for hurting the religious sentiments of the Christian community. Ashish Shinde wrote to Director General of Police of Maharashtra demanding the arrest of the Bollywood actress, dance-director and the famous comedienne.
Shinde, who runs an NGO, had filed a police complaint in December in Maharashtra’s Beed district against the three entertainment celebrities. “Take action instantly and give direction to Beed Superintendent of Police (SP) to arrest all the accused,” news agency PTI quoted the content of his letter sent to Maharashtra DGP.
He later told the news agency that ‘neither the office of Beed SP nor Shivaji Nagar police station had given any information about the status of the case.’ This prompted him to file an application to the DGP office.
The latest development came just days after one more police complaint was filed against the trio in Maharashtra’s Nagpur. The complainant was identified as 27-year-old Khushbu Bhagwan Parwar, who’s a resident of Gorewada.
“The complaint was submitted on December 27 and after investigating it, an offence under section 295a (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage the religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or the religious beliefs) was registered. We will issue summons to the three soon,” the official was quoted as saying.
Last month, in a big relief to comedienne Bharti Singh of The Kapil Sharma Show, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had directed the police to not take any coercive measures against her in the same case. Earlier, the court had issued a similar directive on a plea filed by actress Raveena Tandon and choreographer-director Farah Khan.
Bharti, Farah and Raveena were accused of hurting the religious sentiments of the Christian community in a TV show called Backbenchers. Bharti had wrongly spelt Hallelujah.
The first police complaint against the three entertainment celebrities was filed by one Sonu Jafar in Amritsar of Punjab. Two more police cases were registered later in the state’s Ferozpur and Rupnagar districts. Another FIR was filed in Maharashtra’s Beed district. Angry Christians had also staged protests in some places in Punjab and Jammu. Bharti’s lawyer has argued that the FIR against his client was illegal, ex-facie bad in law and needed to be quashed.
Farah, Raveena and Bharti had issued public apologies for hurting religious sentiments of the community seeking forgiveness.