Chennai: Senior BJP leaders, including National secretary C T Ravi, have condemned the arrest of actress and party functionary Khushbu.
Party spokesman K T Raghavan said, “When no action is taken against Thirumavalavan for his derogatory utterances on Hinduism inspite of many complaints lodged with police, myself and @khushsundar arrested on the way to Chidambaram to take part in the democratic protest…what kind of govt is this ?”
Party leader C P Radhakrishnan said “My very strong condemnation of the arrest of Smt.@khushsundar Ji and other members of @BJP4TamilNadu today who had planned a peaceful protest against #Thirumavalavan who is facing a huge public backlash for his speech. The entire TN women are angry with him. #ArrestThirumalavan”.
After courting a controversy over his remarks, Thol Thirumavalavan, who was elected to the Lok Sabha from Chidarambaran seat, staged a State-wide protest urging the Central and State governments to ban the Hindu religious text, Manusmriti, on the grounds that it demeans women, the backward castes and indigenous groups, and spreads hatred against them.
Thirumavalavan said the Manusmriti, believed to have been written almost 2,000 years ago, speaks ill of the working class, as a whole, instigates violence against them and justifies their murder. āIt portrays women in a bad light. It states that a particular āvarnaā or caste does not have the right to live. This is why Ambedkar burnt the Manusmriti in 1927 and exposed its inhumanity in manyĀ of his books,” he said.
Khushbu, in fact was the first one to react and condemned Thirumavalavanās statement and demanded that he prove his claim that the Manusmriti says “women are prostitutes”.