Controversies
Seeman has met with numerous controversies, largely linked to his support of the organisation LTTE and its leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran. He was detained twice under the National Security Act of India. He was first arrested in February 2010 for his support to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and against Sri Lankan Government for the genocide against the Eelam Tamils. He was arrested again in the same act in July 2010, this time for allegedly making speeches against Sri Lanka and against its Navy which killed 500 plus Tamil fisherman while fishing in the sea, and later released.
In 2010, Chennai police registered a case against Seeman in connection with the attack on the house of actor Jayaram accusing him of instigating the attack on the actor, who allegedly made a comical derogatory remark on a Tamil woman in an interview. Eight persons were held soon after the attack and a special team investigating the case arrested four more later, including Seeman's brother James Peter. Mr. Jayaram's house was damaged after a group of youths threw stones and set on fire to the furniture at the main entrance. Seeman was initially absconding but later got anticipatory bail.
Seeman vehemently argues for Tamil's rights and insists on employing Tamil language and Tamil speaking people everywhere, cribs that from very high posts like CEO/CFO to meneal jobs like highway toll collector, it is the non tamils who are thriving in Tamil Nadu. But, he is till date yet to employ a tamil actress for a lead role in any of the movies he has directed: Suvalakshmi is from Bengal, Bhavana from Kerela, Madhubala from the north, Gowthami and Keerthi Reddy from Andra Pradesh and Pooja, a Sinhalese girl(Refer Filmography). Even his much talked about forthcoming Pagalavan has been planned with Bhavana and Hansika Motwani. When it comes to his movies and financial gains, he seems all to ready to compromise on the "Tamils only" pledge and even his most vehement supporters dont seem to be bothered and readily ignore it. Former Mylapore MLA SVe Shekar remarked in an interview that "if financial gains are assured, I am sure Seeman wont hesitate to cast even Mahinda Rajapakshe in a lead role in a movie". When confronted, Seeman's supporters backtrack diluting Seeman's "Tamils only" with "Any one can live in Tamil Nadu, but Tamil Nadu to be ruled by Tamils only" and that "I am not against anyone but having more affinity towards Tamils and Tamilnadu". At the end of the day there is a lot of talk and no follow through.
In 2011, Tamil actress Vijayalakshmi who has acted in Seeman's direction and had a close relationship with him, lodged a complaint with Chennai Police against Seeman for making false promises that he would marry her. When reporters contacted Seeman, his advocate Chandrasekar said that these are false allegations made to tarnish Seeman’s image. The advocate also said that Seeman would marry an Eelam Tamil girl who was affected during the genocide of Eelam Tamils.
Seeman has spoken in 2500 stages about Tamil & Tamil Eelam struggle till 27-03-2013 in 15 years.
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