Kerala sit-on-lap controversy: bus stand to be remade

Thiruvananthapuram: Authorities removed the bus stand at Sreekaryam near the Government College of Engineering-Trivandrum (CET) on Friday. The stand was hit by the spotlight earlier after local people cut its waiting bench into three to avoid girls and boys sharing the same seat, PTI reported.

After the bench was cut, a bunch of students protested by sitting in the three trimmed seats on one another's laps. They took pictures of the same, published the same, and it became viral on social media.

Now the disfigured bus stand got removed by the authorities two months after Thiruvananthapuram city Mayor Arya S Rajendran promised to build a gender-neutral bus stand in the same place.

The Mayor, who visited the spot in July, had written on a post that disfiguring the bus stand was "inappropriate" as well as "unbecoming of a progressive society" in Kerala. She added that there is no such ban on girls and boys sitting together in the state, while those who still believe in moral policing were still living in ancient times.

The ruling CPI(M)'s youth wing DYFI had also said breaking the bench in the bus stand was unacceptable.