Days after a 90-second teaser of the Tamil movie, a Kamal Hassan production, Amaran, was released, members of the political party Tamilaga Makkal Jananayaga Katchi (TMJK) took to the streets on Thursday, January 22, demanding that the movie be banned, stating that it portrays Muslims in a negative light.
The teaser of the film, released on February 16, produced by Hassan’s Raaj Kamal Films International, Sony Pictures International Productions, and R Mahendran, stars Sivakarthikeyan and is a biopic of late Indian Army officer Major Mukund Varadarajan, who was killed in April 2014 in a fight at Shopian of Kashmir.
Major Varadarajan was posthumously awarded the Ashoka Chakra award, the nation’s highest peacetime gallantry award.
The teaser shows an Indian soldier being kidnapped by a group of Muslims, including children.
The teaser shows Sivakarthikeyan as late Major Mukund, leading the Indian Army’s 44 Rashtriya Rifles Cheetah Company. The teaser opens with an Indian soldier kidnapped and threatened by a group of Muslims, including children.
Alleging that Muslims were portrayed in a bad light, they demanded that the duo be charged with the Gooadas Act and attempted to burn the effigies of Sivakarthikeyan and Kamal Haasan.
However, the police intervened and dispersed the protestors and detained a few.
Several protests were held across Tamil Nadu, including Tirunelveli, Tiruppur, and Cuddalore.
It is to be noted that in 2013, Hassan’s Vishwaroopam also faced similar opposition from the Muslim community, who stated that the film portrayed them as terrorists, and demanded that the Tamil Nadu government ban its screening.
While the film was released nationally on the scheduled date, January 26 2013, in Tamil Nadu it was released only on February 7 amidst the protests.
