The Kerala Police on Thursday took into custody award-winning Malayalam filmmaker Sanal Kumar Sasidharan following a complaint by actor Manju Warrier that he was repeatedly “insulting and threatening” her on social media by saying that her “life was in danger”.
The police took Sasidharan into custody from Thiruvananthapuram rural and he will be taken to Kochi, where Warrier filed the complaint on Wednesday. In her complaint, Warrier said that Sasidharan, director of her 2020 movie ‘Kayattam’, has been frequently pestering her by sending messages and attempting to insult her on social media.
Elamakkara police later confirmed that the filmmaker was arrested but they did not divulge details about the charges slapped against him.
Sanal and Manju had worked together in his last yet-to-be released film Kayattam, which had its premiere at Busan International Film Festival in 2020. Over the last few days, Sanal made serious allegations via social media posts that Manju’s life is in danger.
On Thursday, dramatic scenes played out when the police tried to take Sanal Kumar into custody in Thiruvananthapuram. A visibly panicked Sanal Kumar Sasidharan shot a live video on social media and said that his life was in danger. Sanal Kumar did not know that Manju Warrier had lodged a complaint against him at the Elamakkara police station in Ernakulam district till the police reached him in Thiruvanathapuram.
Sanal Kumar is also the director of the movie, ‘S Durga’, which won the best film award at the Rotterdam International Film Festival and ‘Ozhivudivasathe Kali’ that won the Kerala State Film Award.
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