Kamal Haasan is not afraid of legal cases. While his detractors file complaint after petition against him, that hasn’t stopped the actor from expressing his views on various issues. The latest episode in the ‘Complaint filed against Kamal Haasan for…’ saga, a petition was filed in the Madras High Court on Thursday, asking the court to direct the Chennai Police Commissioner to file a case against the actor and investigate his views on ‘Hindu terrorism’.
G Devarajan, a social activist and an advocate clerk at the Madras High Court, said that he had submitted a complaint to the Chennai Commissioner on November 4, and filed similar complaints at the Thiru.vi.ka Nagar police station, E3 Teynampet police station and the F4 Thousand Lights police station. No action has been taken against the actor and nor has any investigation been conducted for the same.
He filed a petition at the High Court to take action against actor Kamal Haasan for his views in Tamil magazine Ananda Vikatan. “However, in the Ananda Vikatan current edition dated 8.11.2017 actor Kamal Haasan comments that earlier there has been no Hindu Right Wing violence and by arguments and debates instigated the others to indulge in violence,” the petition stated.
Devarajan alleged that the actor is trying to instigate violence with his comments.
“The petitioner submits that his tirade against Hindus and secularism is instigating violence among the citizens and therefore before much damage is caused it is just and necessary that he is put in his proper place and action taken,” his petition stated.
The petitioner said that the actor must be arrested for portraying every Hindu as a terrorist. “He is talking in such a way to portray every Hindu a terrorist and tend to set in revolution in a big way by instigating violence and damage to secularism destroying the human relationship creating fear complex in the minds of the people which is clearly anti-national and this conduct of Actor Kamal Haasan should be arrested forthwith,” read the petition.
In an earlier edition of Ananda Vikatan, Kamal Haasan had written, “Earlier, the Hindu right would not personally indulge in violence, but instead through their debates, they would incite their opponents to violence. But once this tactic failed, they started using muscle power instead of dialogue. They too have started using violence. They can no longer challenge saying 'Can you show me a Hindu extremist?'” The statement was translated by media as ‘Hindu Terrorist’, but the actor later clarified that he meant extremist, and not terrorist.
Following this statement, a case was also registered against the actor at Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. It was filed by a lawyer named Kamlesh Chand Tripathi against the actor for “hurting Hindu sentiments”. The case was filed under IPC sec 500 (defamation), 511 (attempting to commit offences), 298 (uttering words etc. with deliberate intent to wound the religious feelings of a person), 295(a) (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings) & 505(c) (attempt to incite hatred, enmity over classes).
Kamal Haasan said that he will surely go to Uttar Pradesh if he is summoned for the case.
“I will go to Varanasi to fight my case. I will also meet people. There is nothing to be ashamed here. I have started my journey towards people and this is part of it. If the court summons me, I will go and my teachers have given me the knowledge to speak in their language and I will also interact with people there,” he wrote in Ananda Vikatan.
Responding to all the cases filed against him for his statements on terrorism, Kamal Haasan said that he is not going to back off from his comments. Justifying his views, he wrote, “I was talking about various forms of extremism but people misunderstood as terrorism. It's not a major crime to file cases against me. People are telling me not to connect violence and religion. But greed and religion are the main reasons for violence across the globe. No religion in this world can argue on that front. People should not take law into their hands. Those powers have been given to the judiciary.”