Rajinikanth has written an open letter to Sri Lankan Tamils after calling off his visit to the island.
CHENNAI:
Four days after he pulled out of a trip to handover houses to displaced Sri Lankan Tamils, superstar Rajinikanth has reached out to Tamils across the Palk Strait to make up for his absence.
The superstar was to fly to Vavuniya town in Sri Lanka's Northern Province where a trust run by a production house that is making his upcoming sci-fi movies, 2.0, had built 150 houses for displaced Tamil families.
Rajinikanth was to hand over the houses to the beneficiaries at a mega-event on April 9 that was expected to be attended by about 4 lakh Tamils.
"I don't have words to thank you for your love. Let's wish well. Good things will happen. We shall meet when everything works well," the superstar said in an open letter to Lankan Tamils, days after he had to cancel his visit in view with sentiments expressed by several politicians.
Tamil politicians including VCK Chief Thirumavalavan and MDMK's Vaiko had asked him to cancel the visit that could be used by the Lankan government that all was good. The group is also seen to be close to Mahinda Rajapaksa the former President of Sri Lanka.
They say the island nation has not rehabilitated displaced Sri Lankan Tamils even eight years after the war ended; nor is it bringing to justice those responsible for human rights violations including killing of an estimated a lakh and forty thousand Tamil civilians.
In a long statement issued earlier, the superstar called himself an entertainer and asked politicians not to stop him from going to Sri Lanka in future "if I get a chance to meet and entertain Tamils later".
To the people of Sri Lanka, he had spoken how he yearned to "breathe the air on the land where lakhs had fought for their land and rights and died" and meet the Lankan Prime Minister with regard to a solution for problems faced by Indian fishermen.
The United Nations Human Rights Council last week gave Sri Lanka two more years to fulfil its commitments for reconciliation and transnational justice.