Lucknow: The Bhojpuri folk singer Neha Singh Rathore faced legal charges when authorities from Hazratganj police station filed an FIR because of inflammatory comments she made about the Pahalgam terrorist attack, which killed 26 civilians in Jammu and Kashmir. Nirbhik Pratap Singh filed a complaint against Rathore for her social media activity, which raised questions about the victims’ death and started religious conflicts, thus threatening India’s national unity.
The dispute originated when Rathore uploaded a video to her X profile (@NehaSinghRathore) on April 25, 2025, as she condemned the Modi administration for the Pahalgam attack while accusing them of failing in both intelligence and security functions. Rathore maintained that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would utilise the Pahalgam tragedy to advance his political goals in the future Bihar Assembly Elections just as he did after the 2019 Pulwama attack. Neha Rathore faces an eleven-section charge in the FIR that includes the anti-national Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, for which she could receive seven years to life in prison , which also invokes the provisions of the IT Act. The documents assert that Rathore’s posts spread throughout Pakistan through the media organisation PTI Promotion before they branched into anti-India messaging across international platforms.
Rathore received critical backlash for criticising Modi through his “56-inch chest” jibe, while she suggested Hindu-Muslim politics exceeded social and economic matters. The complainant faced criticism from Pakistani media following her remarks, as the positive reception she received raised concerns about potential harm to India’s international reputation. Clients, this controversy happened before in 2023 when Rathore received two FIRs about posts around the Madhya Pradesh urination incident and songs that mocked Uttar Pradesh government policies.
The Lucknow police currently investigate the case while Rathore remains silent about the situation. Social media users have split into two opposing factions because some advocate for her freedom of speech, while numerous others criticise her remarks as hurtful and dispersive. Throughout the probe we see a fragile relationship between public liberties of speech and critical national obligations in emergency situations.