Tamil superstar Vijay issues statement after alleged fans troll, abuse journalist on social media

With Imtiaz Ali’s film, Jab Harry Met Sejal, flickering at the box-office currently after receiving lukewarm response from critics and the public, social media seems to be inundated with funny tweets and memes describing the movie-watching experience as sheer ordeal. One such funny tweet by the editor-in-chief of The News Minute, however, wasn’t taken in good humour. Reason being, she had committed the grave mistake of comparing JHMS to Tamil Superstar Vijay’s 2010 release, Sura. [caption id=“attachment_3913745” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Tail superstar Vijay. Image via Facebook[/caption] It was reported earlier , how Dhanya Rajendran, a Bengaluru-based journalist and editor-in-chief of The News Minute, was trolled, abused and threatened on social media after she tweeted about her experience of watching the SRK-Anushka Sharma film. The incident escalated when Twitter profiles, seemingly of Vijay’s fans, bombarded Rajendran with hate messages and posts, and the count went up to 63,000 as reported by NDTV. Rajendran, through her posts later, indicated that the backlash was an organised exercise in targeting her. She even brought out pictures and statistics to reinforce her claim. After she filed a complaint with the Chennai police, the Cyber Crime Branch started investigating the matter and identifying the culprits. According to a report by The News Minute, an FIR has been filed under IPC sections 354 D (stalking), 506(1) (criminal intimidation), 507 (criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication), 509 (insulting the modesty of women), section 67 of IT Act (publishing obscene material), section 4 of TN Prohibition of Harassment of Women Act, and section 6 of the Indecent Representation of Women Act. Vijay issued a statement decrying the incident. He said, “I respect women a lot. Everybody has the right to criticise anyone’s film. It is my view that no woman should be spoken of in a demeaning way for any reason or any time. Everyone has to praise womanhood. I request that nobody should share hurtful and wrong views about women on social media.”