Sedition case filed in Bengaluru against Rajdeep Sardesai, Shashi Tharoor

BENGALURU: Kerala MP Shashi Tharoor, TV anchor Rajdeep Sardesai and other journalists have been booked for sedition at the Parappana Agrahara police station for their tweets on the death of a farmer during the tractor rally in Delhi on Tuesday. The FIR names seven people — Rajdeep Sardesai, Shashi Tharoor, Mrinal Pande, Zafar Agha, Paresh Nath, Ananth Nath and Vinod K Jose.

Rakesh B S, a social worker, filed the complaint, stating that the accused had tweeted that a person had died in police firing during riots in Delhi on Tuesday. The FIR stated, “The tweets have spread hate and disrupted national integration by spreading hate between religions, besides hurting religious feelings.”

The police have booked the MP and journalists under Section 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony), 506 (criminal intimidation), 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 120B (criminal conspiracy), 124A (sedition), 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage reli­gious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), 298 (uttering, words, etc., with deliberate intent to wound the religious feelings of any person).