After outburst from fringe elements regarding the Muthiah Muralitharan biopic, Vijay Sethupathi announced his withdrawal from the movie on by sharing the letter written by the former with the caption “Nandri.. Vanakkam” (Thank you. Goodbye.)
On Monday, Muralidharan, who is in the eye of the storm ever since the biopic on his life was announced, wrote a letter requesting Vijay Sethupathi to excuse himself from the project. He had said that he did not wish to be the reason for a great artist from Tamil Nadu getting affected. Sethupathi had tweeted this letter written by the former Sri Lankan cricketer, requesting him to withdraw from the film, accompanied with the words “Thank you, goodbye” in Tamil. This had also been confirmed by the actor’s publicist.
This resignation was following the announcement of the biopic titled 800, which came under a lot of controversy, and the hashtag #ShameonVijaySethupathi trended on social media, urging Sethupathi to resign from the film.
800, to be produced by Movie Train Motion Pictures and Dar Motion Pictures, has been receiving a lot of flak from fringe elements, claiming that Muthiah Muralitharan was a supporter of the Rajapaksa government, accused of committing excesses during the Sri Lankan civil war.
It is to be noted that Muthiah Muralitharan is the coach for IPL team Sunrisers Hyderabad owned by Kalanithi Maran, member of the Karunanidhi family. It was the Karunanidhi government that was in power when the war was at its zenith.
A lot of famous faces from the film industry like Radhikaa Sarathkumar had come out in support of Sethupathi doing the movie, saying that any kind of sentiments will not be hurt by the movie.
நன்றி.. வணக்கம் 🙏🏻 pic.twitter.com/PMCPBDEgAC
— VijaySethupathi (@VijaySethuOffl) October 19, 2020
Speaking to The Commune, Muralidharan Sivalingam, animal welfare activist from Chennai and a prominent panelist on TV debates who was also born in the same city of Muthiah Muralidharan said that Tamil Nadu politicians especially fringe elements like Seeman who have no understanding of what’s happening in SriLanka are portraying Muralitharan as anti-Tamil. “He is a pride of the Tamil clan. It is unfortunate that this has to happend to him.”, he said.