Kerala blasts: Union MoS Chandrasekhar booked for alleged controversial remarks

PTI, Oct 31, 2023, 10:48 AM IST

A case has been registered against Union Minister of State Rajeev Chandrasekhar for allegedly making statements that promote enmity between different groups, police said on Tuesday.

The Kerala police registered the FIR on its own in connection with the minister’s recent statements on social media regarding the Kochi blasts and a Hamas leader’s virtual address at an event organised by an Islamist group in Malappuram district of the state recently.

A senior officer of Kochi city police said that an FIR under sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence) of the IPC and section 120 (o) (causing nuisance and violation of public order) of the Kerala Police Act has been registered against the minister.

After reports of the bomb blasts at a religious gathering of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Kalamassery near here came out on Sunday, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Chandrasekhar put up posts on social media platform X criticising Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan.

”Dirty shameless appeasement politics by a discredited CM (and HM) @pinarayivijayan besieged by corruption charges. Sitting in Delhi and protesting against Israel, when in Kerala open calls by Terrorist Hamas for Jihad is causing attacks and bomb blasts on innocent Christians,” he had said.

Following this, a verbal duel took place on Monday between the CM and Chandrasekhar with the BJP leader calling Vijayan a ”liar” and he in turn lashing out and terming the MoS ”extremely venomous”.

The CM also said that if anyone makes statements which are in violation of the law, irrespective of whether they are central or state ministers, cases would be registered against them. The blasts were set off at a convention centre in Kalamassery near Kochi where a prayer meeting of the Jehovah’s Witnesses — a Christian religious group that originated in the US in the 19th century — was held on Sunday.

A few hours after that, Martin, who claimed to be an estranged member of Jehovah’s Witnesses, surrendered before police in Thrissur district of the state, saying that he carried out the multiple blasts.

Initially, one woman had died and 60 were injured, six of them critically, in the blasts. Subsequently, one of the six critically wounded — a 53-year-old woman — succumbed to her injuries. By Monday morning, the death toll rose to three with the death of a 12-year-old girl who had suffered 95 per cent burns in the incident.