Tamil actor Vijay has urged his fans not to abuse a woman journalist who had criticised his movie Sura on Twitter, reported the Hindustan Times. The actor, in a statement issued on Wednesday night, asked his fans to respect other people’s opinions.

“I am someone who respects women a lot,” he said in the statement. “Everybody has the right to criticise anyone’s film. It is my view that no woman should be spoken of in a demeaning way for any reason or any time. Everyone has to praise womanhood.”

Vijay’s statement comes after the Chennai Police on Wednesday charged four people for abusing and threatening Bengaluru journalist Dhanya Rajendran on social media, NDTV reported. Rajendran, who on August 4 had tweeted that Shah Rukh Khan’s latest release When Harry Met Sejal was worse than Vijay’s Sura, was bombarded with vulgar tweets and threats.

Rajendran has received over 63,000 tweets since Friday, and a derogatory hashtag also trended on Twitter. “It’s clearly organised,” she said in one of her tweets. “There was a planned wave of trolls at the appointed time, 6 pm.”

Investigators said the four people were using aliases on Twitter. “We are adopting conventional methods to trace these people,” a senior officer said, according to NDTV. “Some have also deleted their accounts.”

Rajendran has also received support from several quarters, including other journalists, and from Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s Working President MK Stalin. In a tweet, Stalin said, “Intolerance in any form, for expressing ones views in a democratic country is unacceptable. These acts to strangulate the freedom of expression, especially of a woman journalist in Chennai is highly deplorable and condemnable. Rule of law must take prompt measures in curbing this menace.”