Rajinikanth on Periyar incident: Sorry, I will not apologise

Rajinikanth refused to apologise for his remarks, which were made at Thuglak magazine's 50th year anniversary event, about Dravidian leader and social reformer Periyar. This comes days after Dravidar Viduthalai Kazhagam, a Dravidian outfit demanded an apology from him for his comments on a rally taken out by Periyar decades ago. Rajinikanth, today, vehemently refused to apologise and asserted that his remark was factual.

Showing clippings from magazines and newspapers, Rajinikanth said the idols of Lord Ram and Sita were taken out without dress and a garden of sandals were placed on the deities in a rally led by late Periyar EV Ramasamy in 1971.

"A controversy has emerged that I said something that did not happen. But I did not say anything that did not occur. I only said what I heard and things that appeared in magazines. Sorry, I will not express regret or apologise," he told reporters outside his Poes Garden residence.

On the 1971 rally, the actor said such things that happened in the past should not be raked up again and again. "It was not a thing that can be (easily) forgotten but a thing that must be forgotten," he quipped.