PIL in Madras HC seeks to remove scenes depicting fishermen in poor light in Yaanai movie

CHENNAI:  A public interest litigation (PIL) petition has been filed in the Madras High Court seeking orders to remove scenes and dialogues that depict fishermen in poor light in Arun Vijay's Yaanai movie. N Joebhoy Gomez, State executive committee member of Tamil Nadu Fishermen Federation, filed the petition.

When the matter came up for hearing before the first bench of Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and N Mala on Tuesday, technical glitches in videoconferencing disrupted the proceedings. Subsequently, the bench posted the matter to August 1. The petitioner alleged that Yaanai depicts fishermen as gangsters and smugglers and indulging in hooliganism and also involving in crimes against children.

Such scenes are done with an ulterior motive to defame the fishing community, he said. He further stated that the heroine of the movie, in the climax, resembled Mother Mary, whom the fisher folk of Pampan and  Thangachimadam worship. While she is seen destroying families, the hero, who worships Subramaniaswamy, saves and protects all the families.

"The scene is deliberately introduced without any pretext to hurt the religious sentiments of the Christian fisherfolk," the petitioner stated. Moreover, the film also shows a cultural festival, in which, a woman performing Karagattam is sexually abused by fisherfolk and forced to dance naked, he alleged.

The petitioner said the depiction of fishermen in poor light is deliberate by the film's director who belongs to a community which is in conflict with the fishing community in coastal areas of southern districts of Tamil Nadu and he has scripted and directed the movie deliberately to offend the dignity of the fisherfolk. He sought the court to restrain the respondents and their men and agents from showing the objectionable scenes and dialogues that hurt the fishing community.