#WeStandWithSuriya trends after Vanniyar Sangam’s legal notice to Jai Bhim team

People took to social media to support actor Suriya on Monday as the state president of Vanniyar Sangam issued a legal notice to director TJ Gnanavel and others involved in making the film Jai Bhim. The legal notice demanded an unconditional apology and removal of scenes considered defamatory.

The notice claims that in one scene in the movie, the character of the policeman has been purposefully depicted as belonging to the Vanniyar community, a politically dominant backward caste in Tamil Nadu.

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PMK leader and former Union Health Minister Dr Anbumani Ramadoss has lashed out at Suriya and accused him of hurting his community’s sentiments. Following this, #WeStandWithSuriya started trending on twitter as many came to show their support and solidarity for the movie and the actor.

Inspired by real life events, Jai Bhim is the story of a tribal woman, Senggeni, who looks for help from advocate Chandru (played by Suriya) to get her husband Rajakannu, arrested on false charges, out of jail. The film revolves around Chandru’s fight with injustice and his journey to find the truth.

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Vanniyar Sangam sent a legal notice to Suriya, actor Jyotika, who is also Suriya’s wife, director TJ Gnanavel, 2D Entertainment Private Limited (Suriya and Jyotika’s production house) and a representative of Amazon.in.

Advocate Baalu, head of the legal wing of Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), mentioned in the legal notice that Pu Tha Arulmozhi (state president of Vanniyar Sangam) mentioned that certain scenes in Jai Bhim defame the Vanniyar community. Vanniyar Sangam sought correction of objectionable scenes and Rs 5 crore as compensation within a week. The notice asked the team to immediately “cease and desist from publishing anymore false, malicious and defamatory remarks against my client’s community.”

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Earlier this week, Suriya had responded to Ramadoss by saying that he and his team never had any intention to insult any individual or community and corrections were made as soon as the mistakes were pointed out.