Rein them in!: Kasturi demands Ajith act after miscreants heinously target her in his name

Controversy erupted on Twitter after Indian film actor Kasturi Shankar recently called out trolls on the microblogging website after she was tagged in a post that seemed to propagate lewd messages targetted directly at women and actresses. 

Notably, the messages were posted by handles that have Tamil actor Ajith Kumar's photos as their profile pictures.

Kasturi, who is known for taking strong stands against issues of sexual harassment during the #MeToo movement was recently tagged in a sexually offensive tweet, in an attempt to outrage her modesty. 

Kasturi fights back against reprehensible, abusive tweet

'Why go and "look" for a woman outside, go ask your mother or sister instead' she wrote.

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In light of this incident, Republic Media Network spoke to the actor to register her comments on the matter, where she acknowledged that the tweets were despicable and outrageous. 

Condemning their actions she launched scathing attacks on the miscreants and quipped, hiding behind the masks as Ajith fans, they were tarnishing the actor's image and goodwill.

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When asked about her thoughts on the culture of people making such inappropriate jokes at actresses on social media, she retorted, 'it's deeply disturbing, but it's a reality that actors and women go through frequently'. 

Referring to the incident, Kasturi said, the Twitter thread started 7 days ago and that she was tagged to the post for no apparent reason other than the fact that she frequently comes in defence of women being taunted online. Confirming this the actor said,

'The post came to my notice because I was tagged in it and I had to call them out for their incredibly vile behaviour'. 

The popular South Indian actor expressed anguish over the fact that nobody, especially from the Ajith Kumar fan club apologised to her or to the women community for what was said. She further explained that actors such as Ajith Kumar have a 'moral responsibility' to come out in support of women when injustice like this is meted to them. 'If they don't do it and continue observing silence, then it's as good as 'abetting to the crime' she said.

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'It's not just enough to act in remakes of films that preach women empowerment, big stars must also condemn their fans or issue statements clarifying their stand on such incidents', she said.

'I received apologies from 3 people over the incident and over 5,000 messages of complete and shocking abuse with descriptive details about what they will do to me along with various other vulgarities in line with the Twitter thread that started all of this.'

Her tweet slamming the trolls has since then been retweeted over 2,500 times at the time of this publication after she lashed out on them on her page with the hashtag #dirtyAjithFans. Actor Ajith Kumar and his fan club are yet to make any comment on the issue.

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