In a dramatic development, film actor S Kasthuri, arrested by the Tamil Nadu police near Hyderabad late yesterday night in the case pertaining to derogatory remarks against Telugu speaking community in the state, was produced before a court and remanded to custody till November 29.

She was brought to Chennai by road and questioned for more than an hour at the All Women Police Station, Egmore, Chennai. On being produced before the magistrate, she remanded and lodged in the Puzhal Central Prisons.

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The actor’s arrest by a special team of the Tamil Nadu police from a bungalow of film producer Hari Krishnan at Narsingi police limits off Hyderabad followed the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court dismissing her bail plea in multiple cases filed against her. Dismissing the bail petition on November 14, Justice Anand Venkatesh of the High Court had observed, “The petitioner claims to be an educated and public spirited person but what has fallen out of her mouth is highly pejorative. Courts must be more stringent when such demeaning statements are made by such persons since they are setting a bad role model for others.”

At a protest demonstration organised by the Indu Makkal Katchi (IMK), a sangh parivar outfit in Chennai on November 3, to press for statutory protection to the Brahmin community akin to the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, Kasthuri had said “When people who had migrated to the state as attendants of the kings’ harem some three hundred years ago could be Tamils why not those who had come two thousand years ago.” Her grouse was against the Dravidian discourse denying Tamil identity to the Brahimins and claiming them to be Aryan imigrants.

This reference to the migration of Telugu speaking communities to Tamil Nadu during the Vijayanagara empire in South India had incensed the Telugu associations and their complaints filed against her in Chennai and Tiruchi claimed that the actor had denigrated the community. And, she was booked under Sections 191 and 192 of the BNS Act of 2023.

Following the uproar over her controversial remarks, she had tendered a public apology and issued a statement clarifying that her views were only against a few individuals and not against the entire community. In her bail petition too she had reiterated this saying, her comments were indeed an appeal for recognition of the Tamil identity of Brahmins, both Tamil and Telugu, in the context of historical migrations. But, it had failed to contain the outrage and satisfy the High Court.

After her bail plea was dismissed, the police landed at her residence at the upmarket Poes Garden in Chennai to serve summons, but found the house locked and her mobile phone switched off. It was then that a special team was dispatched to Telangana to nab her.

However, she had found support from unexpected quarters. The ultra-Tamil nationalist, Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) of Filmmaker Seeman had criticised the filing of cases against her and arrest.