After the terror attack in Pahalgam, Jammu, and Kashmir, folk singer Neha Singh Rathore is being charged with sedition for allegedly targeting a particular religious minority in a series of offensive social media remarks.

Abhay Pratap Singh filed the complaint, alleging that Ms. Rathore stoked communal tensions by making "anti-national statements" on social media. According to relatives of several victims of the April 22 attack in Pahalgam's Baisaran Valley, the terrorists visited each of them and inquired about their faith.  They were shot dead for claiming to be Hindu.

 Neha Singh Rathore is who?

 Political satirist and folk singer Neha Singh Rathore is well-known for writing Bhojpuri songs.  Born in 1997, she grew up in Jandaha, Bihar.  In 2018, she graduated with a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) from Kanpur University.  According to reports, Ms. Rathore began performing and composing Bhojpuri folk music in 2019.  She started using her phone to record tunes, which she then posted to Facebook. Ms. Rathore has mentioned Mahendar Misir and Bhikhari Thakur, two Bhojpuri poets, as her sources of inspiration.

 In May 2020, she started a YouTube channel to spread the word about how the Covid-19 lockdown affected migrant workers.  Ms. Rathore has posted her art on a number of websites, such as Twitter (now X), Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.  She became well-known for her political satire by October 2020, and by 2021, she had more than one lakh subscribers to her YouTube channel.

  Popular songs on social media include "Bihar Mein Ka Ba" (2020), "UP Mein Ka Ba? (2022), "UP Mein Ka Ba? Session-2" (2023), and "MP Mein Ka Ba?" (2023) by Ms. Rathore. as a criticism of Uttar Pradesh's government, tackling topics including the Hathras gang rape case, the violence in Lakhimpur Kheri, and mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 Ms. Rathore became embroiled in controversy in July 2023 after a charge was brought against her for sharing a cartoon about the Madhya Pradesh urinating episode.  A video of a man peeing on a tribal laborer in a public area leaked in June 2023, triggering the incident.  "MP Mein Ka Ba?" (what's happening in MP), a song that became well-known during the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly election season, was also published by Ms. Rathore in July 2023.

Ms. Rathore is currently facing accusations under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) in Lucknow, including inciting sectarian hatred, disrupting public order, and jeopardizing India's sovereignty and integrity.  By the Information Technology Act, she was also charged.

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