Court defers 'Vishwaroopam' verdict until January 29

Chennai: The verdict on the ban on 'Vishwaroopam' has been deferred till Tuesday with the Madras High Court's Justice K. Venkatraman asking actor filmmaker Kamal Haasan to explore ways of a settlement with the Tamil Nadu government.

The judge watched the film at a private screening on January 26. Haasan, 58, who was not present for the hearing on Monday, is likely to meet the government officials in a day.

The Tamil and Telugu versions of the film were scheduled for a January 25 release, but a day before the screenings the Tamil Nadu government imposed a two-week ban on the film after some Muslim groups complained that some scenes in the film portrayed the community in a bad light.

After two days of it\'s release, on January 26 \'Vishwaroopam\' was also banned in Malaysia by it\'s ministry.

'Vishwaroopam' released in places like Kerala, a few parts of Hyderabad and Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh on the scheduled date, but soon after the first show, the screening was banned in these states too.

On Jan 26, the film was also banned in Malaysia, where it released on January 24. It was banned after the Malaysian ministry intervened and requested the distributor to stop the screening of the film.

Following the ban in Tamil Nadu, actors such as superstar Rajinikanth, Ajith Kumar, Parthepan and filmmaker Bharathiraja along with producer Mukta Srinivasan opposed the measure, and urged members from the Muslim organisations to allow peaceful release of the international espionage thriller.

Produced and directed by Kamal, 'Vishwaroopam' features him in the title role. Other members of the cast include Pooja Kumar, Andrea Jeremiah, Rahul Bose, Shekhar Kapur and Jaideep Ahlawat.

However, its Hindi version 'Vishwaroop' is slated for a February release.

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