After politician Anbumani Ramadoss came down heavily on the poster of Vijay in his next movie Sarkar, a complaint has now been registered against Thalapathy and director AR Murugadoss with the Chennai Police commissioner.
An advocate, Thamizhventhan, has lodged the complaint stating that the smoking scenes will have a bad impact on the society and especially youths. He claims that Thalapathy has a sizeable fan following and such scenes will influence his followers to smoke without realising the consequences.
Hence, Thamizhventhan has requested the commissioner to order for the removal of Sarkar's posters in Chennai.
However, the fans of Vijay are of the opinion that the government should ban cigarette instead of asking filmmakers not to do smoking scenes in movies.
Recently, the Tamil Nadu People's Forum for Tobacco Control (TNPFTC) had condemned the posters of Sarkar stating it violated laws.
"The poster has lead actor Vijay posing with a cigarette in his mouth. This is a violation of Section 5 (Prohibition of Tobacco Advertisement, Promotion, Sponsorship) of COPTA - Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003 and GSR 786 of COPTA, which prohibits 'the display of tobacco products or their use in the promos and the poster of films'," India Today quoted TNPFTC as saying in a statement.
PMK founder Ramadoss has also slammed Vijay for "promoting" smoking in the first look poster of his upcoming movie. "You'll look more stylish without that cigarette. #SmokingKills #SmokingCausesCancer. [sic]"Anbumani Ramadoss tweeted. He further added, "Shame on Actor Vijay for promoting Smoking in this first look of his next movie. #ActResponsibly #DoNotPromoteSmoking. [sic]"
Sarkar is an action thriller which tells the story of an NRI, who fights against the system after returning to his motherland.
