Mahinder Kaur files complaint against Kangana Ranaut in Bathinda court

The Bollywood actor had misidentified Ms. Kaur as Bilkis Bano, the octogenarian who made headlines during the anti-CAA protests.

Kangana Ranaut

Mahinder Kaur, who was misidentified by Kangana Ranaut as “Shaheen Bagh dadi”, has filed a complaint against the actor in a court in Bathinda.

The complaint has been filed under IPC sections 499 (defamation) and 500 (punishment for defamation), Ms. Kaur's counsel Raghbir Singh said on Friday.

The counsel said the court has fixed January 11 as the date for hearing the complaint.

In her complaint, the 73-year-old woman farmer from Punjab said the actor made “false imputations and remarks” against her in a tweet by comparing her with a woman, saying she was the same “dadi” who was part of the Shaheen Bagh protest.

“By using such remarks, the actor lowered my reputation and prestige,” Ms. Kaur alleged in the complaint.

Because of the “false and scandalous” tweet, the complainant was suffering from grave mental tension, agony, harassment, humiliation, loss of reputation and defamation in the eyes of her family members, relatives, neighbours, co-villagers and general public at large, as per the complaint.

Ms. Kaur, a resident of Bahadurgarh Jandian village here, said Ranaut had not even tendered an unconditional apology to her.

The Bollywood actor had misidentified Ms. Kaur as Bilkis Bano, the octogenarian who made headlines during the anti-CAA protests in 2019 in the Delhi neighbourhood of Shaheen Bagh.

Ranaut had shared a tweet alleging that the 'Shaheen Bagh dadi' also joined the farmers' agitation over the new agriculture laws at various border points of the national capital.

She retweeted the post with pictures of the two elderly women, including Bilkis Bano, and wrote that the "same Dadi" who featured in Time Magazine was "available in 100 rupees”.

Later, the actor deleted the tweet after Twitter users pointed out that both the women were different.