Filmmaker Leena Manimekalai and 10 others in her team have been booked in Haridwar for allegedly inciting religious feelings, the Uttarakhand police said on Saturday, amid a controversy over a poster of documentary "Kaali" showing the goddess smoking and holding an LGBTQ flag.
Kankhal Police Station in-charge Mukesh Chauhan said a case has been registered on the complaint of Vikram Singh Rathore, the national general secretary (organisation) of Hindu Yuva Vahini.
He said the case has been registered under IPC section 295 (outraging religious feelings) against producer Manimekalai, assistant producer Asha Ponachan and others in the team for inciting religious feelings.
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The poster has led to a social media storm with the hashtag ‘Arrest Leena Manimekalai’, allegations that the filmmaker is hurting religious sentiments and a member of a group going by the name ‘Gau Mahasabha’ saying he has filed a complaint with Delhi Police.
At the centre of a huge storm over her documentary 'Kaali', director Leena Manimekalai on Thursday (July 7) said she does not feel safe "anywhere at this moment". The filmmaker is facing several FIRs following outrage over the poster of 'Kaali' showing the goddess smoking and holding an LGBTQ flag.
"It feels like the whole nation – that has now deteriorated from the largest democracy to the largest hate machine – wants to censor me. I do not feel safe anywhere at this moment," Manimekalai wrote while tagging The Guardian and sharing an interview she has given to the British newspaper.
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The Toronto-based director described the online vitriol as a "grand-scale mass lynching" by right-wing Hindu groups.
In her interview to The Guardian, she dismissed claims that her film is disrespectful to the goddess or to Hinduism. She said she had been raised as a Hindu in Tamil Nadu but is now an atheist.
"In Tamil Nadu, the state I come from, Kaali is believed to be a pagan goddess. She eats meat cooked in goat’s blood, drinks arrack, smokes beedi (cigarettes) and dances wild … that is the Kaali I had embodied for the film," she said.
"I have all rights to take back my culture, traditions and texts from the fundamentalist elements. These trolls have nothing to do with religion or faith," she added.
Two separate FIRs have been registered against Manimekalai in Delhiand Uttar Pradesh. On Wednesday, two additional cases were filed against her in Bhopal and Ratlam.
Manimekalai is not the only one to face police cases following the controversy. FIRs have also been filed against Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra for allegedly hurting religious feelings with her comments about the goddess.
Answering a question on the row over a poster depicting an actor dressed up as the Goddess smoking a cigarette, Moitra said that she personally has no problem with the poster depicting Kali the way the director wanted to.
Speaking at a media conclave, she said, "When you go to Sikkim, you will see that they offer whiskey to Goddess Kaali. But if you go to Uttar Pradesh, and if you tell them that you offer whiskey to the goddess as ‘prasad’, they will call it blasphemy."
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However, Moitra's fierce statement was quick enough to garner angry comments and responses from leaders and people over hurting religious sentiments. Police in BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh on Wednesday registered a case against Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra over her remark about Goddess Kaali. The First Information Report (FIR) was registered by the crime branch in state capital Bhopal under section 295A of the Indian Penal Code (outraging religious feelings).
(With PTI Inputs)
