Police guard Indian actor after hit film sparks caste furore
Gulf Times
A motorist rides past a poster of actor Suriya Sivakumar from the movie Jai Bhim in Chennai on November 17, 2021.
The star of a hit new Indian film tackling the oppression of marginalised communities was under armed police guard Thursday after threats of violence.
"Jai Bhim" is a legal drama based on the true story of an activist lawyer fighting for a tribal woman whose husband was wrongly arrested and killed in police custody in 1993.
The movie is the latest to highlight the plight of India's millions of tribal people and low-caste Dalits -- "untouchables" -- at the bottom of the Hindu caste system.
The film, released on Amazon Prime, has received rave reviews and unusually for a Tamil-language movie has been successful right across the vast country of 22 official languages.
