Actor Prakash Raj on Thursday said he has sent a legal notice to lawmaker Pratap Simha for “trolling” him on Twitter in October with comments that “disturbed [his] personal life”. In a tweet on October 2, Simha, a Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Mysuru, had used the death of Raj’s son to attack him for his criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Prakash Raj’s five-year-old son died in 2004 in a kite accident.
“I sent a legal notice to Pratap Simha as a citizen of this country for the way he has trolled me, which has disturbed my personal life,” Raj was quoted as saying. “I am asking him to answer legally, and if he doesn’t, I will take criminal action against him.”
The legal notice threatens both civil and criminal defamation cases against Simha, according to The New Indian Express.
In his tweet, Simha had written in Kannada: “Being sad due to your son’s death, having left your wife and you ran behind a dancer...do you, Mr Raj, have any right, legitimacy or worthiness to say anything to Yogi-Modi [Yogi Adityanath and Narendra Modi]?”
The tweet came within a day of Raj’s criticism of Modi for his silence about journalist Gauri Lankesh’s murder and for following some Twitter users who had expressed joy over her death. Raj had also said he had won five National Film Awards, but Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath were more deserving of the awards for acting.
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