Actor Rajinikanth says, will not apologise for remark on Periyar rally amidst protest
Chennai, Jan 21: Days after a Dravidian outfit demanded an apology from him for his comments on a rally taken out by social reformer Periyar decades ago, Superstar Rajinikanth on Tuesday asserted that he will neither express regret nor tender an apology and maintained that his remark was factual.
Showing clippings from magazines and newspapers, the top actor said the idols of Lord Ram and Sita were taken out without dress and the deities also featured a garland of sandals in a rally led by late Periyar E V Ramasamy in 1971.
"A controversy has emerged that I said something that did not happen. But I did not say anything that did not occur. I only said what I heard and things that appeared in magazines.
Sorry, I will not express regret or apologise," he told reporters outside his Poes Garden residence.
Further, he said, "I did not say anything out of imagination or something that was not there. Lakshmanan (then Jan Sangh and now BJP leader) who took part in a dharna (in 1971) has corroborated it," he said.
On the 1971 rally -in which Hindu deities were allegedly taken out naked- the actor said such things that happened in the past should not be raked up again and again.
"It was not a thing that can be (easily) forgotten but a thing that must be forgotten," he quipped.
On January 14, taking part in an event held here by Tamil magazine 'Thuglak' Rajinikanth alleged: "In 1971, at Salem, Periyar took out a rally in which the undressed images of Lord Sri Ramachandra Murthy and Sita -with a garland of sandal- featured ...."
A Dravidian outfit, Dravidar Viduthalai Kazhagam, however, accused the actor of "uttering a blatant lie" and demanded his unconditional apology and also filed police complaints seeking action against him.
DVK alleged that the actor uttered a "blatant lie that the images of Lord Ram and Sita were taken nude in a rally, held as part of a superstition eradication conference held in 1971 at Salem."
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Pakistan reports two more polio cases; Total tally now 52
ISLAMABAD: At least two more cases of poliovirus were reported in Pakistan, taking the number of infections to 52 so far this year, a report said on Friday.
“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of two more wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan," an official statement said.
The fresh infections — a boy and a girl — were reported from the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway," the statement read. Dera Ismail Khan, one of the seven polio-endemic districts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has reported five polio cases so far this year.
Of the 52 cases in the country this year, 24 are from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
There is no cure for polio. Only multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five can keep them protected.
