Vijayan, Satheesan back 'Empuraan'; state BJP chief says he won't watch it

The Empuraan team and I sincerely regret the emotional distress caused to my loved ones MOHANLAL, Malayalam actor

- Vishnu Varma

KOCHI: Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Leader of Opposition VD Satheesan on Sunday expressed solidarity with the makers of the Mohanlal-starrer L2: Empuraan citing the right to freedom of speech and expression. Meanwhile, state BJP chief Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who had previously vowed to watch the movie, said that he would not watch the film.

The statements of the three political leaders came on a day when actor Mohanlal expressed regret for certain scenes that caused "emotional distress" among a section of his fans and pledged to remove those scenes from the film. The big-budget action thriller film attracted controversy after several right-wing social media handles lambasted it over its alleged portrayal of right-wing politics and covert references and scenes to the 2002 Gujarat riots. The producers of the film have said that they would "voluntarily" make several cuts including muting dialogues and changing the names of certain characters.

Vijayan, who watched the film in theatres with his family on Saturday, condemned the alleged hate campaign against the film by supporters of the BJP and Sangh Parivar.

"The film's references to one of the most brutal genocides the country has ever seen has angered the organisers of the riots, the Sangh Parivar. BJP and RSS leaders are also publicly issuing threats to the film's makers," he wrote in a Facebook post.

"This atmosphere of fear created by the Sangh Parivar is worrying. That communal forces are able to destroy a work of art and viciously attack the artists simply because they took a stand against communalism and depicted its horrors does not bode well for democracy," he said.