The controversy around Jai Bhim continues to haunt actor and virtue-signaller Suriya with the Saidapet Court now directing the Chennai Police to file a case against actor Suriya, his wife Jyothika and Jai Bhim’s director TJ Gnanavel.
The development comes following a complaint filed by the Rudra Vanniyar Sena, who had said in their petition that several scenes in the controversial film showed Vanniyars in poor light.
The petitioners pointed out that the villain in the movie had been shown from the Vanniyar Community with their sacred motif ‘Agni’.
The Court first heard the case on April 29 and has now directed the Tamil Nadu Police to file case against actor Suriya, his wife Jyothika and director of the film TJ Gnanavel.
The court noted that prima facie a case is made out as some cognizable offence is disclosed in the complaint.
The court has now forwarded the complaint to the Inspector of police in Velachery to register an FIR.
The case will be heard again on May 20.
When the film was released, actor Suriya and the crew of Jai Bhim found themselves facing heat after they were caught red-handed peddling false propaganda trying to create rift between different communities.
The main villain (character of SI Anthony Sami) is shown belonging to the Vanniyar community with their sacred motif ‘Agni’ being situated in the frame but in reality, the sub-inspector’s name who implicated Rajakannu and thrashed him was Anthony Sami and is not a Vanniyar but a converted Christian.
After backlash, the makers of the film replaced it with a calendar having the image of Hindu Goddess Lakshmi. Netizens pointed out that this was again a mischievous and deliberate twisting of facts in order peddle a narrative against the Hindu majority in Tamil Nadu.
Jai Bhim also received backlash for trying to instigate violence against Hindi speakers. In one scene, Prakash Raj who plays the role of a police officer slaps a north-Indian (who has been stereotyped as a ‘Marwari’ Saet) for speaking in Hindi and asks him to speak in Tamil.
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