Ahmedabad, May 30 The Gujarat Police has registered a criminal offence against Professor Ashish Nandy, a political psychologist and sociologist, for writing an alleged inflammatory article in the second week of January 2008 in an English daily.

Inspector K K Patel of the Satellite police station said the FIR was registered on Friday for the derogatory article titled “Blame the middle class — they are responsible for Gujarat’s politics of hate”.

The case was registered on a complaint filed by advocate — activist V K Saxena, the president of the Ahmedabad-based National Council for Civil Liberties.

The complaint registered under Section 153 (A) (B) of the Indian Penal Code said that the article was prejudicial to national integration and intended to cause friction and promote enmity between different communities on grounds of religion, race, language and place of birth.

Nandy’s article, the complaint said, was highly intemperate, vituperative and showed Gujaratis in a low light.

Surprisingly, the state government gave the permission for filing the case through a notification on April 15. While granting permission for filing the criminal case against Nandy, the government notification said “there is prima facie evidence against the accused for his involvement in the commission of offences under sections of the IPC”.

Source: expressindia