'Love jihad' - Mumbai police files FIR against Nayanthara's Annapoorani, netizens call it 'worst propaganda film ever'

After former Shiv Sena leader Ramesh Solanki filed a police complaint, claiming that the Tamil film Annapoorani, starring Nayanthara, is encouraging “love jihad”, the police have filed an FIR against the makers of the film as well as Netflix.

The complaint has been filed at the LT Marg Police Station in Mumbai. In a tweet posted on January 6, Ramesh Solanki called Annapoorani an “anti-Hindu film” in which a “daughter of Hindu Poojari, offers Namaz to cook Biryani”. He has mentioned a scene in this film in which actor Jai’s character Farhaan “persuades the actress to eat meat, saying that Bhagwan Shri Ram was also a meat eater”.

The film centres on Annapoorani, a young woman who aspires to become a chef. However, because she is the daughter of a Hindu temple pujari, cooking non-vegetarian food is not an easy task. But she overcomes these obstacles and begins tasting and cooking meat as part of her profession.

One particularly controversial scene in the film depicts Annapoorani performing the Islamic prayer Namaz while covering her head with a scarf before preparing biryani. This is because the mother of one of her friends told her that her biryani tasted very good because she said the Namaz before cooking it. This has also been said to have offended the religious sentiments of many.

Responses to this incident

Meanwhile, netizens openly bashed the film on Twitter, calling it the ‘Worst Dravidoid Propaganda Film Ever Made’ and ‘unmitigated nonsense’. While some questioned if every person has to eat meat and embrace Islam to pursue a career as a chef, others blamed the actress for opting to be a part of this film. Another user pointed out Nayanthara’s poor choice of films that did not work well at the box office recently.

“The gaze of the movie is very disturbing and showing one side of the Hindu family and glorifying Islam and not showing short comings,” one wrote in a Twitter post.

Another user has urged Netflix to stop streaming such films and boycott filmmakers who make them.

Ramesh Solanki has also slammed the makers for releasing this movie, especially at “a time when the whole world is rejoicing in anticipation of the Pran Pratishtha of Bhagwan Shri Ram Mandir”.

Debutant Nilesh Krishnaa has directed this comedy family drama, which hit theatres on December 1. Jai, Sathyaraj, Achyuth Kumar, Karthik Kumar, and K S Ravikumar are among the supporting cast of Annapoorani. The movie is streaming on Netflix.