Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Nusrat Jahan has backed the open letter written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi by 49 eminent personalities. The said letter raised concern over the increasing number of incidents of mob lynching and hate crimes against Muslims and Dalits.
To argue her case, the first time Lok Sabha MP from Basirhat in West Bengal quoted a couplet from Iqbal's poem 'Saare Jahan Se Achchha', in a post on Twitter.
"There are numerous incidents of citizens being attacked by so-called 'cow vigilantes' over rumours of eating beef, or cow-smuggling, etc and government's selective silence and inaction hits us hard," Nusrat Jahan said in the post.
The TMC MP said the lynch mobs had turned "Lord Ram's name into murder cry" and termed mob lynchers "nothing but enemies if our country" and "terrorists".
"As young MP, representing new age secular India, I request government and all lawmakers to frame a law to stop such assaults on democracy by mob lynchers," she said, adding, "sirf insaaaniyat ke naate, gaay ke naam pe, bhagwan ke naam pe, kisi ki dari pe, toh kisi ki topi pe - khoon kharaba bandh kare (In the name of humanity, please stop bloodshed in the name of cows and religion)."
Jahan concluded with the famous lines from Iqbal's 'Saare Jahan Se Achchha'.
The 49 celebrities, who signed the said letter, included social activists, filmmakers and artistes -- filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, actor Aparna Sen, historian Ramachandra Guha, filmmaker Mani Ratnam, social activist Anuradha Kapoor, social worker Aditi Basu, author Amit Chaudhury, actor Konkana Sen Sharma, actor-filmmaker Revathy, filmmaker Shyam Benegal, singer Shubha Mudgal, Rupam Islam, singer-composer Anupam Roy, actor Parambrata and actor Riddhi Sen among others.
The letter intended to draw PM Modi's attention to "a number of tragic events" recently, including the alleged weaponisation of the slogan "Jai Shri Ram" into a "war cry".
READ THE FULL STORY HERE: Jai Shri Ram now a war cry: Anurag Kashyap, Ramachandra Guha, others write letter to PM Modi
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