Vijay in a still from the video. (courtesy: iam_K_A)
Tamil superstar Vijay paid respect to the late actor-politician Vijayakanth at Island Ground, Chennai, on Friday. The DMDK president and actor died after testing positive for COVID-19 on Thursday. He was 71. Now, a video of Vijay being attacked by an unidentified person has surfaced online. In the clip, shared by a fan page on X (formerly Twitter), the actor can be seen moving towards his vehicle when he was mobbed by fans. A few seconds later, a slipper is hurled at him and it hits his neck. Vijay doesn't look back and keeps moving. We can see the actor's bodyguard trying his best to make way for him. The text attached to the clip read, “Actor Vijay was attacked by some unidentified persons in the Vijayakanth funeral place.”
In another clip, which was recorded from a different angle, a fan is seen throwing the slipper away after it hits the Tamil superstar. “Another video of a slipper being thrown at Vijay. This is wrong,” read the text.
Vijayakanth's funeral took place at 1 pm on Friday. Celebrities and political leaders gathered at the Island Ground to pay their last respects to the Tamil cinema icon. Vijayakanth, fondly referred to as “Captain”, was admitted to a hospital and put on ventilator support after he complained of breathing problems, reported news agency ANI. Some of Vijayakanth's memorable films include Chatriyan, Sattam Oru Iruttarai, Vallarasu, Ramana, and Engal Anna among others.
Meanwhile, Vijay was last seen in Lokesh Kanagaraj's Leo. The film, which hit the theatres on October 18, also features Sanjay Dutt and Trisha Krishnan in prominent roles. Film critic Saibal Chatterjee, in his review for NDTV, gave Leo 2.5 stars and wrote, “The young director may not be at the peak of his prowess as an action filmmaker in Leo the film flags appreciably in the second half and tends to make heavy weather of piecing together of the past and the present of the storyline - Lokesh Kanagaraj knows how to keep the narrative on the boil with a characteristic complement of action blocks and the occasional harking back to characters and situations from his earlier films. It is a universe that he is building, remember.
Up next, Vijay will be seen in Venkat Prabhu's Thalapathy 68.