Arundhati Roy Stirs Up A Hornet's Nest By Urging People To Lie On NPR

New Delhi: Noted activist and Booker Prize-winning novelist Arundhati Roy kicked up a row by urging people to provide false information to government authorities on National Population Register (NPR).In a short video widely circulated on social media, Roy, speaking at an anti-CAA-NRC-NPR protest in the Delhi University campus, is seen asking people to lie to authorities by giving names such as Billa and Ranga. The author-activist exhorted people to suppress facts to fight the government on the issue.

Roy warned that NPR will be the base for National Register of Citizens. When officials come to people's homes to collect information, she asked the respondents to give them other names such as "Ranga, Billa, Kungfu Kutta". They should say their address is 7 Race Course Road (the official address of PM Narendra Modi), she added. The NPR exercise required a lot of sabotage and subversion, Roy suggested.

Roy's comments sparked a sharp reaction from BJP spokespersons who pointed out that Ranga and Billa were notorious convicted criminals and rapists sentenced for the rape and murder of two siblings in a case which shook the nation's conscience in 1978. A BJP spokesperson on a television debate said that the author-activist had made highly controversial statements earlier too such as claiming that Kashmir is not an integral part of India.

Meanwhile, legal experts say that providing false information to government authorities could have legal consequences. According to Citizenship Rules 2003, lying to government authorities on basic information during such a data collection exercise, is a punishable offence, legal experts point out.