Two days after the Supreme Court gave the disputed land in Ayodhya to the Hindu litigants, over 200 Popular Front of India (PFI) workers were booked in Kerala’s Kannur for protesting against the top court’s verdict.
On Monday evening, several workers of PFI, a Muslim political organisation in Kerala, organised a protest in Kannur against the verdict which allowed the building of a Ram temple at the disputed site. They were booked by the Kannur police as they had not received permission from the authorities to stage a protest.
The protesters marched from the Kannur Plaza Bazaar to the railway station around 5 pm on Monday.
“We have currently identified around 24 of the protesters and arrested seven of them. All of them belong to PFI,” an officer from the Kannur Town police station told TNM.
The protesters have been booked under sections 147 (Punishment for rioting), 143 (unlawful assembly), 283 (danger or obstruction in public way or line of navigation), 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot) read with 149 (Every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object) of the IPC. In addition to this, they have also been booked under section 117 e of the Kerala Police Act, 2011 (threatens, obstructs or assaults a police officer with the manifest intention of preventing such officer from discharging any of his duties).
“The arrested persons were granted a station bail and let off. We are still investigating and trying to identify the other protesters,” the officer added.
Apart from this incident, the Kerala police have registered five FIRs in the state over inflammatory comments made on Facebook over the Supreme Court verdict. While three cases have been registered in Malappuram based on the directions of the cyber cell, two FIRs were lodged in Kochi.
Following the verdict, Kerala DGP Loknath Behera had said that social media pages will be watched for inflammatory remarks or comments that could spark communal tensions. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had also requested the people of the state to remain calm and accept the verdict, whatever it may be, in a peaceful way. The Chief Minister had issued the statement on Friday evening, prior to the verdict which was delivered on Saturday morning.