Revenge for penalising those attending IIFA

An unidentified group has called on theatre owners in Batticaloa to refrain from screening movies produced in Tamil Nadu in a move to hit back at Indian film stars who boycotted the recent IIFA awards ceremony in Colombo.

The group in Sinhala and Tamil hand bills sent to cinema owners has told them to stop the screening of South Indian movies from Friday till the end of this month.

The hand bill says the boycott by the Indian artistes of the IIFA event had brought disrepute to Sri Lanka and therefore such a retaliation was just and appropriate.
On Thursday an unidentified group torched the giant screen at the Shanthi cinema in Eastern Batticaloa.

The screen of the cinema hall in the Kattankudi area in Batticaloa was damaged in the incident.

This was a day before the Tamil version of the movie Raavan (Raavanan) was screened.
The movie's main star cast Abishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai and its director Mani Ratnam were among those who did not attend the IIFA ceremony in Colombo.

Shanthi cinema manager Kandasamy Murugesu said three people came to his theatre on Monday and told him he should not screen films from Tamil Nadu.

"I informed the Kattankudi police and three days later there was an arson attack," 'The Sunday Times' quoted him as saying.

The manager said he would not bow to this threat and would screen films produced in Tamil Nadu, the newspaper said.

Murugesu said he hoped to get police protection. Earlier this month, activists in Tamil Nadu forced some theatres to stop the screening of Hrithik Roshan starer Kites.

Groups sympathetic to Sri Lanka's minority Tamil communities are angry after the actor defied calls to boycott a IIFA film awards ceremony in Colombo on June 5.

It may be recalled that the South Indian film industry joined the 'boycott-IIFA' chorus asking Bollywood not to participate in the three day entertainment gala in Colombo.
Some Pro-Tamil groups in Tamil Nadu had asked actors from Bollywood to boycott the June 3-5 event.