It's a genuine grievance: Mamata on open letter about lynchings

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said that the open letter penned by 49 renowned personalities on lynching incidents in the country is a genuine grievance.

"Everyone in this country knows what is going on. I respect all the intellectuals. I feel that whatever they have written is a genuine grievance by the people," she told reporters here.

"I think it is the right time that they have written to the Prime Minister. Any citizen can write to the Prime Minister for any purpose," the TMC supremo said.

The 49 celebrities from different fields including singer Shubha Mudgal, actor Konkona Sen Sharma and filmmakers Shyam Benegal, Anurag Kashyap and Mani Ratnam, among others, wrote the letter to Modi on Tuesday, demanding that "exemplary punishment" should be meted out "swiftly and surely" in lynching cases.

The celebrities went on to say that while Modi has criticised lynching cases in Parliament, they argued that it is "not enough."

The renowned personalities have also highlighted that 'Jai Shri Ram' has become a "provocative war-cry" in the present day that leads to law and order problems and "many lynchings take place in its name.