On Monday, around 1,500 members of the radical Islamist organisation Popular Front of India (PFI) from all over the state gathered in the state capital and took out a march. They alleged that the Kerala police targeted PFI leaders in the infamous Alappuzha hate sloganeering case. Liquor bottles were thrown at the police and the march soon turned violent.
PFI workers were on their way to the official residence of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan when the police tried to stop them using barricades. The high-security zone soon became a battleground and the jihadis held the area for ransom. Police used water cannons and tear gas shells, but the unruly crowd stayed put for more than two hours.
The Thiruvananthapuram protests began after PFI state secretary C A Raoof addressed the terrorist supporters. Raoof said that the police went soft on Sangh Parivar leaders who opposed the Alappuzha calls for Hindu genocide. Bizarrely, he alleged that the Hindu leaders were trying to create enmity between communities.
Raoof alleged that the communist regime uses PFI slogans against RSS workers to whip up communal tensions. He added that certain police officers are working for the RSS. Kerala police remained mute spectators while he spoke. Raoof’s inflammatory speech whipped up jihadi passions, and the protestors went beserk.
The state government and the terrorists helping each other became apparent when the police invoked bailable charges against four PFI leaders who organized the march. The Thiruvananthapuram police also booked cases against 1,000 PFI activists under bailable offenses for taking part in the march.
Earlier, Kerala police were forced to arrest a few PFI leaders who called for Hindu and Christian genocide in Kerala during a rally in Alappuzha on 21 May. Though thousands had marched and indulged in provocative sloganeering, the police arrested only a few PFI members. They were the ones who used a 10-year-old boy who wanted Hindus to buy stuff needed for their last rites.
As videos of the same went viral and created a backlash from society, PFI rioters changed the narrative and said that the slogans were against BJP and RSS workers. That did more damage and that is when the police were forced to arrest a few terrorists, including the young man’s father. The father, a butcher from Ernakulam, justified his actions and told the media that he would continue to use such slogans.
Both the police and the state were reluctant to take any actions against the organizers of the Alappuzha rally. This apathy emboldened the PFI and state committee member Yahya Thangal to address another crowd, saying Kerala High court judges wear saffron underwear. For PFI terrorists, every Hindu is an RSS stooge.
The Kerala high court had to intervene and asked the police to take appropriate action against those responsible for controversial slogans made during the PFI rally disrupting the peace of the society. Thangal was arrested and is now in jail. Many local leaders were also arrested, but PFI top leaders were not. As a result they are trying to incite more violence in the state.
