Tamils protest Salman Khan’s Sri Lanka visit for IIFA function

Members of the Tamil community staged a protest here on Sunday against Bollywood actor Salman Khan’s proposed visit to Sri Lanka for International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) awards ceremony.

Khan is due to attend the 11th IIFA awards ceremony in Colombo from June 3-5.

“We tried to give him a letter which he did not accept and said that he will attend the award function, so we have burnt photographs here. In case if they attend this function we won’t let his films to release here,” said Sharvana, a protestor.

Earlier, the Tamil community held a similar protest outside actor Amitabh Bachchan’s residence on May 11.

The IIFA 2010 is being viewed in Sri Lanka as a ‘coming out’ platform for a nation that is emerging from 30 years of civil war.

The Tamil film fraternity has also rejected the idea of an Indian film event in Sri Lanka, with popular Tamil actors Rajnikanth, Kamal Hassan, Vijay, Ajith and Surya reportedly declining to take part in the IIFA.

Some 260,000 Tamil refugees, who fled fighting in the waning months of the war with the Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka and held in military-run camps, are in the process of a slow-moving rehabilitation.