Pseudoscience event row: Another complaint against Mahavishnu; CSR issued

CHENNAI: A day after he was arrested within hours of landing at the Chennai airport, another complaint was filed against self-proclaimed motivational speaker and spiritual leader Mahavishnu at the Tiruvottiyur police station on Sunday.

Police have received the complaint from a differently abled rights' group and have issued a community service register (CSR) for now.

Mahavishnu, founder of Paramporul NGO, was booked by the Saidapet Police under sections 192 (provocation with intention to cause riot), 196 (1) (a) (promoting enmity between different groups), 352 (intentionally insulting someone), 353 (2) (making statement containing false information) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), and section 92 (a) (intentionally insulting or intimidating a person with a disability in public) of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, based on a complaint from N Vijayaraj, a differently abled man.

Police arrested the speaker upon his return from Australia at the Chennai airport on Saturday and produced him in the Saidapet court. The court remanded him in judicial custody until September 20. Subsequently, he has been lodged in Puzhal Jail, Chennai.

The Tamil Nadu Association for the Rights of All Types of Differently-abled and Caregivers (TARATDAC), too, had filed a complaint against Mahavishnu at Saidapet police station seeking legal action against him for expressing derogatory views against the differently abled.

The complaints pointed out the portion in his speech where he claimed that a person born with a disability was due to the sins he/she committed in their previous life while addressing students at a government school in the city. When a visually impaired teacher of the government school where he made the controversial speech questioned him, Mahavishnu chided him in front of his students and colleagues.