Parvathy Thiruvothu reacts to Annapoorani being removed from Netflix amid row: ‘A dangerous precedent’

Actor Parvathy Thiruvothu is among the first celebrities to react to the controversy surrounding Nayanthara's latest movie, Annapoorani.

A fresh controversy around Tamil movie Annapoorani is raging on social media. A section of people is offended with some scenes in the movie, starring Nayanthara in the lead, which they believe promote 'Love Jihad' and hurts religious sentiments of Hindus. Amid all this, even Zee Studios decided to pull the film off Netflix, where it had been streaming since December 29 after a theatrical release on December 1. Now, actor Parvathy Thiruvothu has addressed the same in an Instagram post.

Parvathy Thiruvothu calls out 'censorship left right and centre'.

Reacting to the studio's decision to take the film off Netflix, Parvathy wrote on her IG stories, “A dangerous precedent being set. Censoring left right and 'centre' until we won't be allowed to breathe.” Nayanthara has not commented on the controversy so far.

A few other tweets also echoed the thought. “Annapoorani being removed from Netflix is straight up shocking, like I know the state of freedom of expression is bad but it truly is pathetic how bad it is. This sets such a bad precedent for the future. If we’re removing movies that hurt groups of people wtf is animal then,” read a tweet by a Twitter user. 

Parvathy Thiruvothu's reaction to the controversy.

Zee Studios issued an apology to Vishwa Hindu Parishad stating that the film will be removed from the platform until it’s edited to remove the objectionable content. “We have no intentions as co-producers of the film to hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus and Brahmins community and would like to hereby apologise for the inconvenience caused and hurt caused to the sentiments of the respective communities. (sic)”

In an FIR, filed at the Lokmanya Tilak Marg police station in South Mumbai by one Ramesh Solanki, he alleged that Annapoorani demeans Lord Ram and it was intentionally released to hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus. Solanki also cited a few scenes in the movie, which he says hurt the religious sentiments. The complaint mentions the last scene of the film which shows a temple priest's daughter, played by Nayanthara, offering namaz wearing 'hijab' before making biryani. In another scene, Farhaan, the friend of the character played by Nayanthara, brainwashes her into cutting meat and says Bhagwan Shri Ram and Maa Sita had also consumed meat. It mentions one more scene in which Nayanthara doesn't go to the temple, but goes to Farhaan's place for 'iftaari'. Solanki demanded in his complaint that a first information report (FIR) be filed against actor Nayanthara, director Nilesh Krishnaa and others for hurting religious sentiments and promoting 'love jihad'.