Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has finally deemed it fit to intervene after a spate of arrests over reported insult to the national anthem in the state in recent days.
The CPI(M) in a Facebook post on Tuesday on its official page has made it officially known that none will be charged with sedition in the matter.
The detention and subsequent release of writer and theatre artist Kamal C Chavara on Sundayfollowing a complaint by Yuva Morcha -BJP youth wing- alleging that Kamal had insulted the national anthem in his latest book had ignited a huge controversy.
Earlier, around 11 people were also arrested (and later released on bail) in Thiruvananthapuram for not standing up while the national anthem was played in movie theatres during the just-concluded International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK).
“Newspapers have carried news that the writer Kamal C Chavara has been booked under Section 124A (dealing with sedition) for his post on Facebook on the national anthem issue. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan who is also the state Home Minister has instructed the police to let go of the said charge. The police have acted accordingly. There is no case of sedition against anyone in the national anthem issue in Kerala,” reads the CPI(M) post.
The post also goes on to accuse the BJP and the RSS of targeting the LDF, mainly because it was only the Left in Kerala that held massive protests against demonetisation in the country.
“This effort to ratchet up communal hatred now is part of a larger attack on the Left. These are difficult times. In the coming days as well, we are going to see all kinds of stories coming out of Kerala. Please guard against such deliberately misleading, incomplete stories,” the post warns the public.