The Kerala police have registered a case against Union Minister of State Rajeev Chandrasekhar for allegedly making statements that promote enmity between different groups, police said on Tuesday.
The police registered the FIR on its own in connection with the minister's recent statements on social media regarding the blasts in Kalamassery, Kochi and a Hamas leader's virtual address through a recorded videoat an event organised by the Solidarity Youth Movement in Malappuram district 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 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.
Chandrasekhar alleged that “Kerala has increasingly shown a tolerance towards radical elements and radicalisation," further saying that both the “Congress and the Left in Kerala have a history of appeasement of radical elements in the state”.
A verbal duel took place on Monday between Chief Minister Vijayan and Chandrasekhar with the BJP leader calling Vijayan a "liar" and he in turn lashing out and terming the MoS "extremely venomous".
Strongly criticising Chandrasekhar's post, Vijayan at a press conference in the evening said that the statements by the BJP leader were a reflection of his "absolute communal outlook". "Those who are poisonous will keep spitting poison," the Chief Minister said.
"He is a minister and he should show a minimum level of respect to the investigating agencies. The probe is underway...in such a serious incident, at such an early stage, they are making such statements targeting a few sets of people. This is based on their communal agenda, but Kerala doesn’t have such an agenda. Kerala always stood against communalism...," he added.
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.
"To accuse me of being communal, or to accuse our party of doing anything other than looking after the best interest of every Indian, is to be a liar. He (Pinarayi Vijayan) is a liar. If not having links with the SDPI, PFI and Hamas is the qualification for being called communal, I am proud to say that nobody in BJP has any linkages with SDPI, PFI and Hamas...," Chandrashekhar hit out at CM Vijayan.
To put in context, the blasts in question were set off at a convention centre in Kalamassery, 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.
Three persons were killed and over 50 others were injured in the explosion. Preliminary investigation revealed that the blast was caused by an improvised explosive device (IED).
A few hours after that, Dominic 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. However, police have not yet confirmed his involvement in the explosion.
It was hours after the blasts that Chandrashekhar slammed CM Vijayan, in a series of posts on X.