Agencies, Chennai Actor-producer-director Kamal Hassan today ended his row with protesting Muslim groups who got the screening of his new film ‘Viswaroopam’ banned for two weeks by Madras High Court with the help of Tamil Nadu government, agreeing to cut seven scenes in the film that allegedly hurt Muslim sentiments.
The charismatic actor, who flew back to Chennai from Mumbai this afternoon for three way talks with Tamil Nadu Home Secretary R Rajendran and representatives of 24 Muslim outfits, resolved the issue after two rounds of negotiations at the Secretariat that lasted about four-and-a-half hours. A beaming Kamal Hassan told newspersons that he had agreed to the demand by the Muslim outfits to delete seven more scenes that hurt their sentiments. Earlier, Kamal who returned to Chennai at 1200 hrs from Mumbai after the premier of the Hindi version of the film, by an Air India flight at 1200 hrs, only told a large number of waiting newspersons and TV channels that the Hindi version was eliciting a ‘fantastic response’ from audiences in the North. However, he did not say anything about the tripartite talks with the Muslim outfits.
The talks which were to take place yesterday had to be put off as the outfits insisted that they would sit down only with Kamal. Kamal had moved the High Court after the state government imposed a 15-day ‘ban’ on the release of the film. This was challenged by Rajkamal Films Internationals the banner under which Kamal and his elder brother Chandrahansan produced the film. A single judge in an interim order struck down the ban after which the state government got it reimposed when the first bench of the HC stayed the single judge’s order. Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa meanwhile clarified that her government had only taken law and order situation into consideration while ordering the ban and suggested that Kamal could still sort out the issue with the protesting Muslim outfits.
