Anurag Kashyap quits Twitter after his parents and daughter receive threats
The filmmaker, a vocal critic of the Narendra Modi government, said he would not speak at all if he was not allowed to speak his mind without fear.
Acclaimed Hindi film director Anurag Kashyap on Saturday deleted his Twitter account after his family received threats, India Today reported. Explaining his decision, Kashyap said: “When your parents start to get calls and your daughter gets online threats you know that no one wants to talk. There isn’t going to be reason or rationale.”
The director said thugs would rule and thuggery would be the new way of life. “Congratulations everyone on this new India and hope you all thrive,” he added. “Wish you all the happiness and success. This would be my last tweet as I leave Twitter. When I won’t be allowed to speak my mind without fear, then I would rather not speak at all. Goodbye.”
Kashyap is a vocal critic of the Narendra Modi government and was among the 49 public intellectuals who wrote to the prime minister last month, expressing concern about the rising number of mob-lynching cases. Most of the lynching victims are Dalits and Muslims.
Last week, the filmmaker criticised the Centre’s decision to revoke Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and bifurcate it into two Union Territories. “You know what is scary, that one man thinks that he knows exactly what’s the right thing to do for the benefit of 1,200,000,000 people and has the access to the power to execute it,” he said, taking a dig at Modi.
In May, the Mumbai Police had filed a first information report against a Twitter user for threatening to rape Kashyap’s daughter. The user, who used the social media handle “chowkidar_ramsanghi_”, had threatened to rape her if she failed to get her father to stop “talking nonsense”.
Also read: