Delhi Assembly summons Kangana Ranaut over 'Khalistani terrorists' post

Delhi Assembly's Committee on Peace and Harmony on Thursday summoned Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut to depose before it on December 6 (at 12 noon) over her recent social media post in which she had labelled farmers protesting against Centre's three farm laws as "Khalistani terrorists".

"Pertinently, the committee has received numerous complaints eliciting inter alia, outrageously offensive and derogatory Instagram stories/posts allegedly published by yourself (Kangana Ranaut) over your official Instagarm Account against the 'Sikh Community' by blanketly labelling them as 'Khalistani Terrorists' through the purportedly deliberate references and imputations made in the said stories/posts, thus depicting the entire Sikh community in a very bad light, which as per the complaints, has the potential to endanger harmony as well as cause wounding humiliation to the entire Sikh community," the summon read.

It has further cited one of Ranaut's post in which she has, without taking any names, mentioned India's first lady prime minister Indira Gandhi and Operation Bluestar carried out in 1984. "Khalistani terrorists may be arm twisting the government today... But let's not forget one woman...the only woman prime minister ne inn ko apni jooti ke neeche crush kiya tha (she had crushed them under her feet)..."

"The aforementioned post have purportedly caused immense agony, distress and gravely hurt the religious sentiments of the people from Sikh community, thus potentially leading to a situation of disruption of peace and harmony in the NCT of Delhi by allegedly disrespecting the entire community and purportedly instigating threats to the life and liberty of the people from the aforesaid community," it added.

Padma Shri Kangana Ranaut has been actively posting hate content over social media against anti-CAA and anti-farm laws protest. She was also banned by Twitter for violating community hate speech guidelines in the month of May, this year.

Headed by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Raghav Chadha, the committee has been constituted to recommend suitable measures to defuse the situation and restore harmony among religious communities, linguistic communities or social groups.

It had also sent a summon to Facebook India in the month of October to send its senior representative to appear over the northeast Delhi riots before the panel on November 2 with the aim to focus on social media platform's role in curbing false and malicious messages that could cause disharmony in the society.