Vishwaroopam Row: After Muslims, Christians express anger

Chennai, Feb 6: After Muslim organisations expressed reservations over the release of megastar Kamal Haasan's multilingual film "Vishwaroopam", Christians took the film to court.

However, the Madras High Court on Tuesday, Feb 5 turned down the plea of the petitioner, C. Jebakumar George, who said "because of the screening of the film, great prejudice had been caused to Christians in India".

"This is the second attempt to stall the release of the movie, Vishwaroopam," the First Bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Elipe Dharma Rao and Justice M.Venugopal said in its order dismissing the petition, reports The Hindu.

The High Court turned down the "plea for a direction to the Central and State Governments and the Central Board of Film Certification to ban the Kamal Hassan-starrer ‘Vishwaroopam' in its present form throughout the country until the film is edited to be in conformity with the guidelines under XII and XIII of the Cinematograph Act," added The Hindu.

The petitioner George said he watched the controversial film in Thiruvananthapuram on January 27.

George added he was shocked to find many scenes to be very violent and derogative of religions and races. George accused the film offends the sentiments of Christians community.

The 95-crore film ran into trouble after Muslims organisations in Tamil Nadu expressed anger over the film. They said the film depicts Muslims in bad light. However, the film was released in neighbouring states Karnataka and Kerala and audiences appreciated it. Its Hindi version, "Vishwaroop" is doing well across North India.

Moreover, deck for the release of "Vishwaroopam" in Tamil Nadu, its biggest market has been cleared. The 58-year-old actor-director agreed to run seven scenes in the film said to be "offending" to Muslim groups without any audio.

The film will hit Tamil Nadu theatres on Thursday, Feb 7.

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