A day after a group of eminent citizens wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention in cases of lynchings, West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh dubbed the signatories of the letter as “sycophants” and “anti-nationals”.
“If these sycophant intellectuals, who are writing to the Prime Minister, have any shame left they will first protest against lynchings in Bengal. People are being beaten up for chanting Jai Shri Ram in Bengal,” Mr. Ghosh said on Thursday. On Wednesday night, Mr. Ghosh said that the intellectuals who wrote to the Prime Minister were acting as “stooges of Opposition parties out to malign the BJP government.”
“They are anti-nationals,” he said.
Forty-nine people including well-known filmmakers like Mani Ratnam, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Aparna Sen and actors like Soumitra Chatterjee and Kaushik Sen signed the letter dated July 23.
Targeting those signatories who are from West Bengal, the state BJP president said that they are scared to utter even a word against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Mr. Ghosh also alleged that Ms. Banerjee was behind the initiative.
One of the letter writers "threatened".
Meanwhile, actor Kaushik Sen, one of signatories of the letter, told journalists in Kolkata that he has been “threatened by an unknown caller with dire consequences.”
Mr. Sen said that the caller asked him that why he is “silent when Hindus are beaten up” and warned him to mend his ways or face dire consequences. The actor said that he had informed the police and other signatories about the development.
