Case filed against Ram Gopal Varma for "poking fun at Lord Ganesha"

, Sept 6: A criminal complaint has been filed against film maker

in a Magistrate's court here alleging that he had hurt religious sentiments of people by poking fun at Lord Ganesh with his Twitter comments.

The Andheri Magistrate has posted the complaint for hearing on September 30 when he would hear the parties on the point of issuing process against Varma.

The complaint, filed by Viveck Shettyy, Managing Director of Indus communications and Head of Media Cell, Consumer Guidance Society of India, alleged that Verma's comments were in bad taste and insulting to the elephant God.

The 52-year-old producer-director, who, apart from questioning the ability of Lord Ganesha to remove obstacles from the path of his devotees, made fun of his physical attributes, the complaint alleged.

Varma had made fun of Lord Ganesha's physical attributes

These tweets are per se outrageous and are on the face of it, hurting and inciting religious feelings and sentiments of people who practice, preach and propagate Hindu religion.

Lord Ganesha is considered as a God in Hindu religion and people pray to him and perform pujas and rituals.

They have a strong religious faith and belief in Lord Ganesha and have a strong devotion towards him, said the complainant.

According to him, Varma has ridiculed religion and thereby committed offences under IPC such as section 295 A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion), section 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) and section 505 (statements conducting to public mischief).

PTI