Complaint filed against Vijay Deverakonda over alleged insult to tribals at Retro movie pre-release event

Hyderabad: The Tribal Lawyers Association has filed a formal complaint against actor Vijay Deverakonda for allegedly making derogatory remarks against the Scheduled Tribes community during a public speech at the pre-release event of the film Retro, produced by Maatv Films.

The event took place on April 26, 2025, and was attended by a large public audience along with members of the press and electronic media. Actor Surya from the Tamil film industry also shared the stage at the event.

According to Kishanraj Chauhan, President of the Tribal Lawyers Association and resident of S.R. Nagar, Hyderabad, Vijay Deverakonda made an offensive comment during his address. The remark in question was, “These are the kind of senseless actions that people without even the minimum common sense do, just like how the tribals fought 500 years ago.”

Kishanraj Chauhan stated that he came across the video of the speech on YouTube at around 8:00 a.m. on April 26, 2025. The video was published on Maatv Films’ official YouTube channel (@maatvfilms). As of April 24, 2025, the video had 165,000 subscribers, 824 likes, and 34,252 views. The content was also shared on Maatv Films’ Facebook page (FB/Maatvfilms) and the Instagram handle @divakasuradasd.

The association claims the comment was disrespectful and humiliating to the tribal community.

The Tribal Lawyers Association has requested that action be taken under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against Vijay Deverakonda for his statement.