Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut said MPs were stopped at “gunpoint” from reaching the EC’s office “as if they were terrorists” NEW DELHI: Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut on Friday criticised the directive asking actor Imran Khan to leave India, saying it was beginning to feel as though protesting in the country had become a crime.“I read somewhere that Imran Khan was born in America. But he is Indian. His entire family is completely Indian. His blood is Indian, and his voice is Indian. If something is happening in my country and I raise my voice, you tell me to leave India? We told the British to leave India. Now they are telling our own people to leave India?” Raut said in an X post.Drawing a parallel with Mahatma Gandhi’s return from South Africa during the freedom struggle, Raut questioned why people raising their voices against developments in India were being asked to leave the country.“When Mahatma Gandhi came back from South Africa to India for the freedom struggle, no one told him, ‘You are African. You are not a citizen of India. Run away from here’,” he said.Imran Khan, a 43-year-old actor and Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cardholder, is likely to approach the Bombay High Court on Friday, October 16, or Monday, October 19, through his advocate Zulfiquar Memon, challenging the directive.
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In his draft petition, Khan has described the “leave India” order as “drastic” and argued that no provision under the current law or statutory rules bars an OCI cardholder from participating in a peaceful protest.The action against Khan follows his brief detention during a protest at Mumbai’s August Kranti Maidan on October 10. Protesters had assembled at the historic site in solidarity with the Cockroach Janta Party’s demonstration in Delhi, which demanded the resignation of chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
