Rahul hits out at govt over FIR against celebs

Wayanad (Ker): Anyone who said anything against the prime minister or the government was put behind bars, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged on Friday, a day after an FIR was filed against nearly 50 celebrities who wrote an open letter to PM Narendra Modi on incidents of mob lynching.

He said it was not a secret anymore that the country was moving towards an authoritarian state, adding that the prime minister should tell the country why he had "destroyed" the economy and created "massive joblessness". "Everybody knows what is going on in the country. It is not a secret. In fact, the whole world knows it. We are moving towards an authoritarian state. It is pretty clear," the Wayanad MP, who has come to his constituency to express solidarity with the protests against the night traffic ban on a highway passing through the Bandipur Tiger Reserve, told reporters. "Anybody who says anything against the prime minister, anybody who raises anything against the government is being put in jail and attacked. The media is crushed. Everybody knows what is going on. This is not a secret," he said.

An FIR was filed at Bihar's Muzaffarpur on Thursday against around 50 celebrities, including Ramachandra Guha, Mani Ratnam, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Aparna Sen, who had written an open letter to Prime Minister Modi, raising their concern over the growing incidents of mob lynching in the country.