CHENNAI: The cyber crime wing of the Chennai police on Monday booked the director and producer of a yet-to-be-released web series following a complaint from the Tamil Nadu BJP spokesperson Narayanan Thirupathy.
The complaint filed on May 27 at the office of the Chennai city police commissioner claimed that the web series intended to target the Brahmin community and that scenes from the show are vulgar.
The producer Elango Raghupathy had subsequently on Sunday filed a complaint seeking action against those who made threat calls to him and circulated fake news and hate messages about him on social media.
He said he was receiving repeated threat calls after social media users alleged that he was involved in the recent incident where meat was thrown at a temple in Coimbatore. The social media posts also carried his phone number asking people to call and abuse him, he said.
A day after Raghupathy's complaint, police booked him and the director of the web series Babu Yogeshwaran based on the complaint filed by the BJP spokesperson.
The Cyber Crime wing of the Central Crime Branch registered a case under seven different sections including charges of provoking to cause riot, promoting enmity and causing fear among the public.
In his complaint, Thirupathy said the show intended to attack the religious sentiments of a particular community and create hatred amongst religions.
The complainant also mentioned a dialogue from the teaser which says, "Where does it say only a Brahmin should read the scriptures?" claiming that such dialogues were offensive.
With protests against the show snowballing on social media, the teaser was pulled down a few days after its release.
Raghupathy had told The New Indian Express on Saturday, "We haven't released the web series yet and just a one-minute teaser has been misunderstood. If people watch the web series, they will understand that it was not against any religion and that it is just about a fake godman."
He added the web series is a commissioned show where the ideas and approval of many people are needed. "They didn't just target me but also said vulgar things about my family and threatened to kill us," he said.
He said some people calling him did not even know the name of the series but just wanted to terrorise him because of the messages they received on social media.
The police are yet to register a case on Raghupathy's complaint.