The Popular Front of India (PFI) and the Samastha Kerala Jam'iyyathul Ulama on Friday came out with a statement accepting Malayalam newspaper Mathrubhumi’s sincere apology over an ‘offensive’ comment about Prophet Muhammad that was posted on social media and reproduced in the Calicut and Thrissur editions of the vernacular daily on Wednesday.
"Those who commit a mistake should apologize. Mathrubhumi has done that. I have made arrangements to make our activists aware of the matter. The mistake could have resulted in a dangerous situation…Mathrubhumi and Muslim leaders have now arrived at a timely solution,” Alikutty Musliyar of Samastha Kerala Jam'iyyathul Ulama was quoted as saying.
PFI leader Abdul Hameed termed Mathrubhumi as a newspaper with decades of journalistic experience and hence printing of such a comment without editing shocked society. Since the paper expressed regret over the same, PFI -he said- too has decided to call off all protests.
Widepsread protests – both online and offline - against the Malayalam media major Mathrubhumi were on since Wednesday with the newspaper staff receiving abusive calls from many parts of the state as well as from the Gulf region.
The comment was a response to a story on Kerala High Court judge Kemal Pasha’s observations on polygamy among Muslims and Muslim personal law. The Calicut edition of Mathrubhumi on Wednesday carried a few of the responses -some of which were downright abusive- to Kemal Pasha’s views in the AppsTalk section of the newspaper.