May 16, 2019
Madurai (Tami Nadu): Slippers were hurled on Wednesday evening at Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) founder Kamal Haasan, who has kicked up a controversy with his ‘independent India’s first extremist was a Hindu’ remark. The incident happened when the actor-turned-politician was addressing an election meeting in Tirupparankundram Assembly constituency in Tamil Nadu’s Madurai.
Police said slippers were thrown at the MNM chief who was addressing the meeting from a vehicle. None of the slippers hit Haasan and fell on the crowd gathered at the meeting.
The police detained one person in connection with the incident.
“A group of people tried to create a ruckus and someone attempted to hurl a chappal from the rear end of the meeting area. However, it didn’t land anywhere near Kamal Haasan,” the police commissioner of Madurai was reported as saying.
Haasan has been facing the ire ever since he said earlier this week that independent India’s first extremist was a Hindu, in reference to Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse.
On Wednesday, Haasan clarified that he had not used the term ‘terrorist’ when talking about Nathuram Godse. “What I spoke in Aravakurichi is ‘historic truth’,” he added.
Haasan on Wednesday moved the Madras High Court and filed an anticipatory bail plea while stating that his remarks were in reference to Nathuram Godse only and not about Hindus as a whole.
Haasan filed the anticipatory bail plea after the court refused to quash an FIR registered against him. The politician had made the controversial remarks at an election meeting in the Aravkurichi Assembly constituency on Sunday last.
“It is only based on hearsay and the source of information of the content of the FIR was not disclosed and the apprehensions expressed in the FIR were ill-founded. The FIR instead of establishing communal harmony had only created a life threat to the petitioner personally,” the MNM chief submitted in his anticipatory bail plea.
He further alleged that attempts were underway to malign his image.
In his petition, Haasan said his comments about Nathuram Godse were not a distorted one.
“In fact he (Godse) himself in his statement during a hearing of the Gandhi assassination case and in his book ‘Why I Killed Gandhi’ had categorically admitted that he was a Hindu and Gandhi was the reason for the partition of India,” the MNM chief submitted.
Sources : Times
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