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Updated: May 13, 2020 23:52 IST

Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) leader Kamal Haasan has said he does not feel threatened amid a row over his remarks on Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse after eggs, stones and slippers were hurled at him during his political rallies.

Kamal Haasan has come came under fire from the BJP and Hindu outfits after he said that the first terrorist in free India was a Hindu in a reference to Nathuram Godse. Haasan made the comment on Sunday night while campaigning for his party’s candidate S Mohanraj for the Aravakkurichi assembly by-poll.

“I feel the quality of polity is going down. I don’t feel threatened,” he was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

“Every religion has its own terrorist. We cannot claim that we are sanctimonious. History shows that all religions have their extremists,” he said.

Watch | ‘Every religion has its own terrorist’: Kamal Haasan amid Godse row

Two unidentified persons allegedly hurled eggs and stones at the dais during Kamal Haasan’s public meeting in Tamil Nadu’s Aravakurichi on Thursday, police said.

No one was injured in the incident at Aravakurichi which happened when Haasan was getting off the stage after completing his address. He was escorted to safety, police said.

MNM workers thrashed the two men suspected to have thrown stones and eggs before police rescued them and took them away for questioning.

The incident came after footwear was hurled towards a vehicle from which Haasan was addressing an election meeting in the Tirupparankundram assembly constituency in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday evening.

Nathuram Godse, a right-wing activist, had assassinated Mahatma Gandhi on January 30, 1948. Eight men were convicted in the murder trial inside the Red Fort by a special court, constituted by an order of the central government. Godse and co-conspirator Narayan Apte were hanged for the murder of the Father of the Nation on November 15, 1949.

(With agency inputs)