Kochi: The father of a Kerala youngster has been arrested after he allegedly shouted “hate” slogans during a Popular Front of India (PFI) rally last week. So far, twenty persons have been arrested in connection with the case.
A video of an 11-year-old youngster sitting on a man’s shoulder during a PFI rally on May 21 and allegedly screaming offensive slogans against Hindus and Christians was extensively shared on social media.
Following the uproar, the boy’s family fled into hiding in Kerala’s Kochi, according to the police. The police tracked down the youngster two days after the rally, and his father was arrested today on his way home to Alappuzha.
The Kerala government is expected to send a report to the Child Welfare Committee regarding the boy.
The boy’s father stated that they had previously yelled the identical chants during protests against the National Register of Citizens, or NRC, and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, or CAA.
“We have chanted the same slogans in the past. And we did not intend to target any religion. It’s a part of our party activity,” said the boy’s father.
When reporters asked the boy who taught him the slogan, he said, “When I went for NRC programme, I heard it there and learnt it by heart.”
The boy’s father, a PFI member, added, “”The slogan was only against Sangh Parivar and not against Hindus or Christians. This slogan was chanted during the NRC and CAA protests too.”
Child welfare officials have been instructed to provide counseling to the child who allegedly screamed the claimed hate slogans, according to Mattancherry Assistant Commissioner of Police VG Raveendranath.
Bajrang Dal workers staged a “shaurya rally” in Alappuzha just hours before the PFI demonstration on May 21, shouting slogans like “the country cannot be handed over to anti-nationals and communalists.”
Last year, within 12 hours of each other, a state leader of the Social Democratic Party of India, the political wing of the PFI, and a state BJP leader were assassinated in Alappuzha.
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