Karthick Naren’s Mafia, about a narcotics cop on the trail of a mafia kingpin, starring Arun Vijay and Prasanna has been the source of heartbreak for some Canadian families, including Tamils in Canada. A board that is shown in the film, carrying images of suspects, uses the photographs of the victims of a serial murderer, Bruce McArthur, according to this report in CBC. The art director of Mafia is Siva Shankar.
The report says that the photos of the murderer’s victims, Skandaraj Navaratnam, Selim Esen, Abdulbasir Faizi, Kirushna Kanagaratnam and Soroush Mahmudi, who were Sri Lankan Tamils in Canada and people of Middle Eastern origin, were used in the frame.
The piece highlights how the families of those murdered, living in Canada and Sri Lanka are very upset.
That this is a Tamil movie, produced by Lyca, whose promoter Subaksaran is a British Tamil entrepreneur with Sri Lankan origins is noteworthy.
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The report in CBC by Angelina King also says that Mafia has been pulled out of Amazon Prime Canada, though the film is still streaming in Indian Prime.
Lyca, in a written statement to CBC has apologised and said that they will blur the photos out once they resume work after the COVID lockdown in India.
Bruce McArthur pleaded guilty to the murder of eight men between 2010 and 2017, in 2019 January.