Five Sanghar Parivar youth caused mayhem in Kerala on April 16 by calling out thousands of Muslim youth out on the streets through WhatsApp to protest against the violent gang-rape and murder of an eight-year-old in Kathua, Jammu and Kashmir. They have now been arrested.
On April 16 unruly crowds took over the streets, vandalized shops and buses, leading to a virtual shutdown in most of the northern towns, a report published in The Hoot said. According to local media reports, more than 2,000 cases were registered by the police and around 1,000 youngsters were rounded up and put in jail that day, the report said.
Such a protest called by the Sangh Parivar men went widely unreported because newspapers did not come out on April 15 to mark the Hindu New Year festival of Vishu on April 14.
Police and TV news channels also failed to take note of it on April 15. The protests were extremely violent, according to the report, unlike most hartals in the area. “It was not surprising that the mischief-mongers could play havoc in the brief intermission of 48 hours when the daily newspapers were away from the scene.”
The gang-rape and murder of the eight-year-old girl in Kathua led to widespread outrage in the country and similar hartals were held all over. But in Kerala, the April 16 hartal caused serious law and order situation in towns and cities in the State’s northern parts, including the municipal towns of Tanur, Tirur and Parappanangadi in Malappuram district and the city of Calicut in Kozhikode district, The Hoot reported.
“The pattern of violence that copied the style of street protests in West Asia, such as tyre bonfires, they seem to have been influenced by the political protests based on identity/ethnic politics,” it said.
Most of the protesters were Muslim youths, associated with different political groups—the Muslim League, the CPM, the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) and the Congress party. Some, of course, were not affiliated to any political outfit.
A Muslim community leader told the author of the report, “The media images of the Kathua violence evidently had a deep and emotional impact not only as a rape of a child, but as a deliberate assault on a community.”
At first, the WhatsApp messages were sent from groups called ‘Justice for Sisters and Voice of Youth’. The messages demanded justice for the Kathua victim. But when the response was noted to be good, different groups were created for different districts with “super admins”. They issued instructions as voice messages, some even asking to beat police officers.
One of the men responsible for supervising the WhatsApp hartal was Amarnath Baiju, 21, of Kollam district. Baiju was associated with the RSS until a few months ago. The others had links with various Sangh Parivar outfits. The police have not yet given any reason as to Baiju called for such a protest.
The police suspect a communal agenda behind the incident. An effort may have been made to break the longstanding history of Kerala known for communal harmony and political activity, according to the report.