Jai Bhim: Vanniyar Sangam demands Rs 5 crore in damages and a public apology

Angered at the wrongful depiction of the Vanniyar community in the Tamil film Jai Bhim starring Suriya the Vanniyar Sangam president Pu Tha Arulmozhi has sent a legal notice to the producers director and Amazon which operates the OTT platform Prime Video where the film is being streamedThe notice which claims Rs 5 crore in damages and a public apology was issued to 2D Entertainment Suriya Sivakumar and his wife Jyothika because their company AK International has coproduced the film the directorscreenwriter TJ Gnanavel and AmazonAccording to the legal notice the movie is claimed to have been based on a reallife incident and its storyline draws upon a decision of the Madras High CourtIt retains the names of the people who were involved in the incidents shown in the film so we have a Rajakannu Advocate Chandru and the police officer Perumalsamy The name of the subinspector of police involved in the custodial death of an undertrial however according to the legal notice was deliberately changed from Anthonysamy to Gurumurthy and hesrepeatedly referred to as GuruIn one of the scenes in the movie the notice points out the Agni Kundam fire burning from a holy vessel symbol of the Vanniyar Sangam is shown in the calendar behind the subinspector of police who commits the atrocityThe notice says that the makers of Jai Bhim had deliberately got a calendar made for the year 1995 with the Agni Kundam He said it had been done with the mala fide intention of defaming members of the Vanniyar Sangam and damaging the image and reputation of the entire Vanniyar communityAccording to the Vanniyar Sangam changing the name of the villain to Gurumurthy which resembles that of one of its frontline leaders and projecting him to be from the community by showing its Agni Kundam symbol implied that the members of the community are prone to committing wrongs and taking illegal actionsAlso Read Jai Bhim trailer Suriya asks tough questions fights battles for the oppressedMy client states that by various symbolic representations in your movie you have wantonly wilfully and intentionally portrayed the character of the subInspector of police who is guilty of committing a custodial death in the film and also in the reallife story belongs to Vanniyar community whereas the said subInspector does not belong to Vanniyar community the notice statesIt cannot be considered as a casual innocent inadvertent mistake and natural sequence in the movie the legal notice reads It adds that the scene was included only with a view to maligning the image of the Vanniyar community people in the society and with a view to defaming the entire community as a wholeApart from demanding Rs 5 crore in damages the Vanniyar Sangam has also sought the removal of the defamatory scenes references to the Vanniyar community and its symbol the Agni Kundam from the movie And it has sought an unconditional apology from the films producers and writer for tarnishing the reputation of VanniyarsEarlier PMK leader and Rajya Sabha MP Anbumani Ramadoss had written to Suriya citing the objectionable portions in the movie alleging that they deliberately targeted the VanniyarsResponding to the charge Suriya had pointed out that the Jai Bhim unit had put out a disclaimer right at the start of the movie saying that this was a story that had only been inspired by a real incident and that the characters names and events were entirely fictionalThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever