The Alappuzha South Police on Sunday, May 29, took into custody Yahia Thangal, an office-bearer of the Popular Front of India (PFI) in connection with a rally organised in the district. Yahia was taken into custody from his house in the Thrissur district. The police told TNM that the arrest of the PFI office bearer is yet to be recorded. 48-year-old Yahia is a State Committee member of the PFI.
Recently a video had surfaced in which Yahya was found making allegedly derogatory comments against the judiciary while criticising the judges. He accused some of the judges of being lenient to the right-wing. “Judges of the Kerala High Court got shocked listening to the slogans of the Alappuzha rally. Why?, because they wear saffron underwear and it’s natural for them to feel the heat, we know that you (the judges) will get upset,” he can be heard talking in a video of a meeting apparently organised by the PFI.
He also alleged that politician PC George got bail (in a hate speech case against the Muslims) because the judge hearing the case was a junior of former BJP State President and present Goa governor PS Sreedharan Pillai.
The PFI organised the rally named 'Save the Republic' on May 21 in coastal Alappuzha. In the rally, a boy, sitting on the shoulder of a man, raised hateful slogans, the video of which has gone viral. The other men who attended the rally repeated the slogans after the boy. A total of 25 persons have been taken into custody since then and remanded. A police officer told TNM that Yahia has been taken into custody for organising the rally.
The police on May 28, Saturday, took the boy's father into custody in the case. The boy's family was absconding ever since a case was registered and the father was taken into custody immediately after they reached home. According to the boy’s father they had raised those slogans during the National Register of Citizens, CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) protests in many places. "He (the boy) got those slogans from those protests. I don't understand why this is a big issue, what is there in that to harass a child like this. No religion has been mentioned and it was against the Sangh Parivar. What is wrong with that? The child learned it from the earlier protests," he told the media.
The rally and the slogans raised by the 10-year-old boy prompted a stern reaction from Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. The CM on May 25 said that there would be no compromise with communal forces. He also warned of strong action against the elements trying to create division in society. The Kerala High Court, meanwhile on May 27 ordered the state government to take strong action against those responsible for raising provocative slogans at the rally.
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