Not enough that police and religious authorities are hounding them for their controversial film Mentega Terbang, the crew recently faced a new threat and this time it is a serious cause for concern.
Earlier today, the cars belonging to director Khairi Anwar Jailani and scriptwriter Arjun Thanaraju had red paint splattered all over them accompanied by a bunch of placards on their vehicles.
“You and your family must die,” one of the placards said.
Their lawyer Zaid Malek, told Malay Mail that both Khairi and Arjun have lodged a police report on the incident this morning.
“Khairi’s car was splashed with paint and Arjun’s car was splashed with paint as well as some sort of corrosive substance as well.
“On both of the cars, they found some placards that say something along the lines that the film Mentega Terbang is insulting Islam,” Zaid said.
Khairi had also received a text message from an unknown number warning him that “today it’s your car, after this if I see you on the streets, I’ll get you,” Zaid said.
He said when Khairi got the text, he was already filing a police report about his vandalized car. He showed his police officer right away, and then he filed a different police report.
“The thing that is highly concerning about this is because we’ve been cooperating with the police.
“We’ve given all information as requested and then, we’re not insinuating anything, but we have to ask the question, how did the assailants find out where they live? They even knew which one was their car when they went to the house. This is unacceptable.
“So what now? How are they going to be protected from this sort of attack from these overzealous religious conservatives who definitely think these people are public enemies number one,” he said.
A scene in the film depicting the main character, Aisyah, wanting to eat pork went viral, as did another in which the character’s father allows her to leave Islam and convert to another religion.
These scenes sparked outrage on social media, with users questioning how the film was permitted for public viewing.
The film stars Syumaila Salihin, Firdaus Karim, Nik Waheeda, Arjun Thanaraju, Khairunazwan Rodzy, Shyamala Kandapper and Jesebel Lee.
Members of the Mentega Terbang cast and crew made their statements yesterday at the Dang Wangi district police headquarters, following Arjun and Khairi, who had been called by the police a week earlier to the Bukit Aman police headquarters due to complaints about the movie.
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