Malayalam actor Surabhi Lakshmi harassed for eating beef on show telecast for Onam

Since Onam Day, National-Award-winning actor Surabhi Lakshmi’s timeline on Twitter and Facebook has looked like an online warzone, with torrential abuse being thrown at her because she ate beef on a TV show aired on Onam day.

Surabhi was also targeted for posting an image of Onam Sadhya with a chicken dish. Though it is a practice for people from North Kerala to have non-vegetarian dishes along with the Onam Sadhya, people continued abusing Surabhi online for insulting the festival. The abusers alleged that Surabhi hurt their sentiments as on Onam day only vegetarian dishes were served.

The Kerala Youth Commission has sought an enquiry by the police on to the issue.

Here are the few comments attacking her:

“Your activities don’t suit your name, better change it. You have certain agenda to do so.”

“Take pork next year, that might suit you better. Mind that take pork for next Eid -Ul- Fitar.”

“You would do whatever dirty things for money, that is what we saw in the TV.”

“You insulted your own community, you don’t deserve to be a Hindu,” laments another comment.

Some of the comments also threatened and abused her.

An Onam Day program on Media One TV featured Surabhi’s day out and her favourite eatery in Kozhikode. In the program, she said that the in particular restaurant she frequently visits, beef is the signature dish. The program also showed her tasting Malabar Parotta with beef curry.

Online trolls also unleashed an attack to Media One channel alleging that they aired the program to hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus. Since the channel comes under Madhyamam broadcasting group which has a Muslim management, they faced a severe flak over the issue on social media.

Surabhi has clarified that the program was shot two-three weeks prior to the Onam and that North Keralaites take non-vegetarian dishes even during Onam.

Speaking to The India Today she said, “The channel has been asking for my interview for quite some time and that's when I agreed to do that programme in a hotel which I usually visit. Hunger is a basic instinct of life and when I'm hungry I don't usually care if it's beef, chicken or pork. The issue is not that I ate beef, but that the programme was telecast during Onam.”