Kollywood producer Ashok Kumar who is the cousin and co-producer of director Sasi Kumar has committed suicide. Sasi Kumar was writer and director for the film Nadodigal, which was remade into Telugu with Ravi Teja as “Shambho Shiva Shambho”. The news has shaken the entire film industry. Ashok cited harassment from a moneylender as the reason for his suicide.
In his sucide note, he wrote – we did a mistake by borrowing money from a financier (Anbuchezhiyan) who treated us very badly in the past six months. The worse part was that he threatened to kidnap the women in my family and the officials, authorities, leaders of cine organisations were all on his side.
Tamil Film Producers Council (TFPC) President and actor Vishal alleged that this was a case of ‘usury,’ and gave an assurance that solutions will be provided if producers affected by ‘usury’ approached the TFPC for redressal. “Producers should stay united…We are struggling hard to ensure fellow producers do business without any impediments,” he said in a statement. Tamil Nadu CM Palanisamy responded on this and directed district collectors and police officials to act swiftly on complaints of exorbitant interest charged by money lenders.
