The Kerala police have booked P Ambika, a journalist for the Malayalam magazine Maruvakku, for her social media post criticising Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. In her Facebook post, Ambika condemned the CM for the death of Kavitha alias Lakshmi, an activist from the banned CPI (Maoist) and said that Pinarayi Vijayan had committed a “massacre.” She also levelled charges that Kavitha was killed in a “fake encounter.”
Kavitha died in December last year reportedly after succumbing to injuries sustained in an encounter with the Kerala Thunderbolts, the elite commando unit of Kerala police.
In the post made on December 29, 2023, Ambika called CM Pinarayi “cannibalistic” and accused him of “committing another murder.” She also alleged that the encounter was fake and that “ten revolutionaries” have been killed by the Kerala Thunderbolts so far.
According to The Hindu, the case was filed recently after a journalist in Kochi filed a complaint with the Kasaba police station in Ernakulam district. Ambika has been booked under IPC section 153 (intent to cause riot) and section 120(o) of the Kerala Police Act.