Veerappan’s wife censures biopic on his life; calls it fiction

V Muthulakshmi, widow of forest brigand Veerappan, has raised objections against the proposed movie based on her late husband’s life, alleging that the director is presenting not reality but ‘distorted facts’.

Flimmaker AMR Ramesh of Cyanide fame is making movies on the life of Veerappan. In Kannada, the movie will be called Attahasa and its Tamil version will be called Vanayudham. Muthulakshmi said the director did not know facts about her husband’s life and was making his movie on the basis of wrong information given by the police.

To buttress her argument, she said that according to the movie, she and Veerappan got married in a temple in front of people, whereas their wedding was a private affair. Also, she said the movie shows that Veerappan got killed in a police encounter when he was returning from a hospital, which, again, is far from truth.

Muthulakshmi said Ramesh wanted to make profit by exploiting people’s curiosity towards Veerappan’s life. She insisted that the storyline of Ramesh’s movie was based on police information, which was incorrect. She said the movie, which is being portrayed as a biopic, will give people wrong information about her husband. She said she had already approached court, seeking a stay on filming of the movie, but Ramesh was going ahead with the work. She demanded that work on the movie stop.

Muthulakshmi said the movie’s director had to take her permission to make the film. She said if he wanted the movie to be released, he would have to show it to her in entirety. She said she would give her approval only if the movie was based on facts, otherwise he would have to change the objectionable parts. She said although Ramesh was claiming that he was working on the movie’s story for 12 years, he knew nothing more than the lies police told him. The entire movie was a “police drama”, she said.