Chandigarh court summons Rahul Gandhi, Arundhati Roy

CHANDIGARH - A court here Friday issued summons to Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi and author-activist Arundhati Roy on a complaint by a local human rights activist against the two for making “inflammatory” speeches.

Civil judge Ranjeev Kumar asked Gandhi and Roy to appear before the court Jan 17.

Activist and lawyer Arvind Thakur had Thursday filed the petition.

“We had filed a joint petition against Rahul Gandhi and Arundhati Roy in the district court yesterday (Thursday). The judge has taken this petition very seriously and summoned both of them to the court and asked them to submit their reply,” Thakur, who heads NGO Global Human Rights Council, told IANS.

“Campaigning in Bihar, Rahul Gandhi had compared RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) with SIMI (Student Islamic Movement of India), which is a banned organisation. This was the tactic to win a vote bank and highly unconstitutional as it could even lead to riots,” he added.

Arundhati Roy is already facing the wrath from various quarters over her controversial remarks on Kashmir. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had also demanded her arrest and said that the language used by her was objectionable and amounted to an attack on the country’s integrity.

“During her recent speech, Arundhati Roy had said that Kashmir was never an integral part of India. She is quite biased and radical. She had also supported the movement of Maoists in her speech and said that their path of violence was appropriate,” Thakur said.