As many as 24 National Award winning filmmakers returned their awards on Thursday to protest against the growing intolerance and threat to diversity and freedom of speech.
Kundan Shah, Arundhati Roy, Virendra Saini, Saeed Mirza, Ranjan Palit, Tapan Bose, Shriprakash, Sanjay Kak, Pradip Krishen, Tarun Bhartiya, Amitabh Chakraborty, Madhushree Dutta, anwar Jamal, Ajay Raina, Irene Dhar Malik, PM Satheesh, Satya Rai Nagpaul, Manoj Lobo, Rafeeq Ellias, Sudheer Palsane, Vivek Sachidanand, Sudhakar Reddy Yakkanti, Dr. Manoj Nitharwal and Abhimanyu Dange are the filmmakers who returned the top honour today.
More than 40 writers and artists and 10 filmmakers had earlier returned the top awards to register their protest.
The campaign began after the mob killing of a Muslim man in Uttar Pradesh's Dadri over rumours that he had eaten beef.
The Dadri lynching and the murders of rationalists were cited as examples of rising intolerance in India.
