Cow dung thrown at national award-winning director for his Sabarimala post

THRISSUR: Suspected right-wing activists attacked national award-winning director Priyanandan on Friday morning because of his social media post on the Sabarimala issue, police said.
Priyanandan’s second film Pulijanma received the National Award for Best Feature Film in 2006. A police officer confirmed the incident and stated that “He was beaten up and water mixed with cow dung was flung on him. A probe is on.” Priyanandan said that the person who attacked him came forward and asked him to identify himself. He said “It appears that this person was waiting for me. He came after me, hit me, poured cow dung water on me. All this happened around 9 am.” “Generally I take a walk on this particular route every day around 7 am, but today I got delayed. This is not a one-man attack, there are others behind this,” the director added The director said that he believes the attack took place due to his recent social media post on Sabarimala due to which the right-wing activists mounted strong protests after the Supreme Court’s September 28 verdict. However, the post was later deleted after protests on social media.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan condemned the attack and stated that such attacks would not be tolerated as it was a direct attack on freedom of expression.