By IANS
Chennai : Actor-politician Sarath Kumar, president of the South Indian Film Artistes Association, Saturday said the association would constitute a “core committee” to look into charges of Tamil and Telugu film artistes faking documents to travel to US.
“It is a grave matter for the South Indian film industry. It has brought us disrepute,” he said. The industry is also worried that the issue may affect overseas shooting of Tamil films.
On Thursday, the US consulate here announced that it had detected visa frauds by the film industry and was imposing a lifetime ban on travel to US on 200 persons.
“The affiliated associations of the Tamil film industry will discuss this soon,” Sarath told the media.
The core committee will comprise representatives from various film industry associations. They will meet US Consul-General David Hopper and “discuss what needs to be done,” two-time MP Sarath said.
He, however, clarified that the association had not yet received the list of 200 film personalities, allegedly involved in the visa racket.
“Using fake documents to obtain visas is against the sovereignty of the country,” he said.
A young actress, Flora Shiny, was arrested Tuesday with false papers for attempting to smuggle another woman out to the US as her make-up artiste.