A day after Tamil Nadu state Law minister warned legal action against the movie Sarkar, a tweet by Sun Pictures that Chennai police was going to arrest AR Murugadoss, the director of the movie late on Thursday night, created panic. However, when TNM contacted the police for information, they denied any such action from their end.
Speaking to TNM, T-Nagar DCP said that regular patrol officers posted in the area were on their regular beat movement.
The news about the prospective arrest was first put out by the official Twitter handle of Sun pictures, which is the producer of Sarkar. The tweet came at the end of a day filled with protests across the state staged by the ruling AIADMK who sought the removal of certain controversial scenes from the movie.
A source with Sun Pictures insisted that the police had gone to Murugadoss' house asking for him and that the intention was to arrest the director.
But a senior police officer denied this and said that there was no question of arrest as there is no FIR against the director. He added that the police wanted to check the security measures at the director's residence. Director Murugadoss tweeted around midnight that the police had knocked on his door several times, and thereby effectively questioning the police's assertion that only police personnel on beat duty were in the area.
On Thursday, AIADMK led by Madurai North MLA VV Rajan Chellappa staged a protest in front of a multiplex seeking the removal of controversial scenes from the movie. They had demanded that the theatres stop screening the movie till the objectionable scenes are removed. Rajan Chellappa had earlier told TNM that the movie has scenes that insult the schemes by the government and the former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and that a complaint was filed with the Madurai city police commissioner.
Similarly, AIADMK men also agitated in front of Santhi theatre opposite to the Coimbatore junction railway station. They ripped apart the banners erected by Vijay fans in the theatre premises and raised slogans against the producer of the movie, Kalanidhi Maran. Places across Tamil Nadu saw protests against screening the movie until the scenes are taken out of the movie.
Sarkar, released on November 6 across the world, starring Vijay and directed by AR Murugadoss ruffled the feathers in the current AIADMK regime. A day after the release of the film, the Information and Publicity Minister of Tamil Nadu as well as the Law Minister of Tamil Nadu had warned action against the screening of the film that is currently running to packed screens across theatres in the state.
The launch of the film in the city in October this year had also fuelled speculation of Vijay's political entry with the actor making an unusually politically-tinted speech. When asked if he had plans to become a Chief Minister in real life, the actor had said, “If I become the Chief Minister, then I won’t just act like one, but will do my job with sincerity.”