Shashi Tharoor summoned by a Kolkata court over his
Kolkata, July 14 (IBNS): The Bankshall Court in Kolkata on Friday issued a summon to Congress Parliamentarian Shashi Tharoor over his controversial "Hindu-Pakistan" comment, reports said.
According to reports, Tharoor has been asked to appear before the court of metropolitan magistrate on Aug 14.
Recently, Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram, Shashi Tharoor, faced a huge backlash in social media after posting on his Facebook account that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would turn India into a 'Hindu-Pakistan' if it returns to power again in 2019 and a Kolkata lawyer asked the senior Congress leader to apologize for his statement as it hurt the sentiment of the nation.
After Shashi Tharoor refused to apologize for his remarks, the advocate filed a case before the city court.
"A case has been filed under sections 153A and 295A of IPC and section 2 of The Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971 against Shashi Tharoor who hurt the religious sentiments of Indians and insulted the constitution of the country by comparing India with other Islamic states like Pakistan," lawyer Sumeet Chowdhury, who filed the criminal contempt against Tharoor, told IBNS.
"The court has accepted the case and asked Shashi Tharoor to appear before it on August 14," Chowdhury added.
Triggering a controversy, Tharoor earlier wrote on Facebook: "I have said this before and I will say it again. Pakistan was created as a state with a dominant religion, that discriminates against its minorities and denies them equal rights. India never accepted the logic that had partitioned the country. But the BJP/RSS idea of a Hindu Rashtra is the mirror image of Pakistan -- a state with a dominant majority religion that seeks to put its minorities in a subordinate place. That would be a Hindu Pakistan, and it is not what our freedom movement fought for, nor the idea of India enshrined in our Constitution."
"Many proud Hindus like myself cherish the inclusive nature of our faith and have no desire to live, as our Pakistani neighbours are forced to, in an intolerant theocratic state. We want to preserve India and not turn our beloved country into a Hindu version of Pakistan," he said.
(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha, Image: Shashi Tharoor Facebook page)
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