Infosys employee Swathi was brutally murdered on June 24th, 2016 in Chennai’s Nungambakkam railway station that shook the entire city. Parents feared to send their daughters out and safety was at stake when the prime suspect Ramkumar was arrested and before trial allegedly took his life too. Although we do not know what actually happened and what was the actual reason behind the murder, a movie has already been created and the family of Swathi has filed a complaint against it as well.
The police complaint, as written by the deceased father, read, “The untimely death of my daughter at her prime age completely shut the doors to us to lead a peaceful life as an ordinary citizen and we couldn’t digest the incident till date which forced us to lead a life in a rotten boat.” The movie directed by Ramesh Selvan promises the audience that they will know everything about the case and also discussions like gender violence, caste, and misogyny in society will be brought to light.
The trailer, in fact, goes into a popular conspiracy theory that Ramkumar’s throat was slit by police officials when he was captured and that he’d not done it himself as the force had claimed. Swathi’s family, as can only be expected, is upset about the upcoming film. According to police sources, her father K Santhanagopalakrishnan has written to the Director General of Police appealing that the production and release of the film be stopped, The News Minute reports.
“We are unable to gauge the intention of producing such a movie, as the facts can be twisted particularly about my daughter. Since the case is sub-judice, production of such a film is not fair and illegal,” TNM quotes the complaint statement.
Speaking to TNM, advocate Sudha Ramalingam says that it’s not legal to make a film on real events and real people without obtaining their consent.
“This is not a film on say Raja Raja Chozhan who is a historical figure. Nobody from those times is around for you to speak to them and obtain consent. When you are making a film on current events, people whose extended families are still there, you have to take their permission to represent them as such,” she says.
However, this is what the filmmaker had to respond to the family’s complaint:
Clipping from the movie ‘Swathi Kolai Vazhakku’
“All my films have dealt with social issues and have created awareness. This one, too, will spark some awareness among the audience. We have retained the subject to what exactly happened and have reported on the case. There will be neither songs nor any sequence that deviates from the incident,” said Ramesh Selvan to The Times of India.
He further added that the entire story has been shot based on news reports and the locations have been used to shoot the movie and there are no songs or unnecessary sequences that will be distracting the audience away from the movie. “Once the film is ready, we will screen it for both Swathi and Ramkumar’s parents, probably by the end of June, and only then release it,” he said.
Arya and Mano from the theater group ‘Koothu-p-pattarai’ are essaying the roles of Swathi and Ramkumar respectively.
There have been films based on real life crime previously, including the sensational Aarushi-Hemraj double murder case. However, most makers have chosen to use fictional names to avoid legal hassles, including ‘Talvar’ which was sympathetic to Aarushi’s parents in its narrative.