Mumbai Police summon Kangana, Rangoli, slap sedition charges

In a significant development, the Mumbai Police have issued summons to Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut and her sister Rangoli Chandel for investigations following a FIR lodged against them with sedition charges included, officials said here on Wednesday.

"Among the charges include Indian Penal Code Sec. 124-A (sedition)...besides spreading communal hatred and falsehoods. The police have also recorded the statement of the complainant, Munawwarali Sahil A. Sayyed todayin this connection," his lawyer Ravish Zamindar told IANS.

The sisters have been directed to come to Bandra Police Station on Oct. 26-27, five days after the Bandra Metropolitan Magistrate J. Y. Ghule took cognisance of Sayyed's complaint and ordered a FIR to be registered against the siblings last Saturday (Oct. 17).

A Bollywood casting director and fitness trainer, Sayyed had accused Kangana and Rangoli of defaming the film industry, portraying the people working in it in a bad light with claims of nepotism, drug addiction, communal bias, attempting to drive a wedge between artistes of different communities, calling them murderers, insulting religions, etc, on social media and through public statements.

He also charged her with of creating a Hindu-Muslim divide through objectionable comments, citing Rangoli's "make the mullas and secular media stand in line and shoot them down; the history may call us Nazis, who cares" remarks.