DMK regime scuttled screening of 'The Kerala Story' in Tamil Nadu, alleges BJP

Chennai: The ruling DMK has taken 'The Kerala Story' off the screens in Tamil Nadu in a systematic fashion, the BJP claimed on Monday and blamed the government for "abuse of power to hide the truth."

If fundamentalist forces had issued threats against screening of the movie, action should have been taken against them and instead, "removing the movie from cinemas" is not only cowardice but also dangerous, BJP Tamil Nadu vice president Narayanan Tirupathi said.

In a statement here, he claimed that the state government has taken the film off the screens in a planned manner. The movie could not be banned legally, he said and alleged abuse of power to hide the truth.

The film brought to people "awareness and precaution" on the modus operanid of terror outfits like the Islamic State (IS) and the DMK regime is taking pride in scuttling the screening of such a movie, Narayanan alleged.

On May 7, President of Tamil Nadu Theatre and Multiplex Owners Association M Subramaniam, popularly known as Tiruppur Subramaniam, said a few multiplexes that had screened the film decided to withdraw it.

He had said: "The film was only shown in a few multiplexes owned by pan-India groups, mostly PVR. Locally-owned multiplexes had already decided not to show the film, as it did not have any popular stars. In Coimbatore for instance, there were two shows so far -- one on Friday and one on Saturday. Even those did not do well. Given that, theatres decided that it was not worth going through the threat of protests."