Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Ezhava community leader and general secretary of the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam, Vellappally Natesan, on Tuesday made a U-turn on an insensitive comment against a man who had lost his life while attempting to rescue two others.
However, Natesan faces charges for his remarks after the Aluva police registered a case against him for making the statement perceived to cause communal hatred. The development is a setback for the leader as it comes when he is leading a Samatwa Munnetta Yatra (Equality Rally) from the north of the state to the state capital in the south.
Natesan compared the deaths in recent days of Naushad, an autorickshaw driver in Kozhikode who had entered a manhole in an attempt to rescue two drainage workers who were suffocating, and the deaths of two handball players who died in a car accident.
The SNDP leader found a communal angle in the two incidents, and remarked that the Muslim driver’s family was given a Rs1 million (Dh55,193) compensation and a job for his wife, while the two Hindu boys who died in the road accident were largely ignored.
The statement evoked sharp criticism from different quarters, with Opposition leader V.S. Achuthanandan demanding that Natesan be arrested for the “hate speech”.
Natesan did an about-face on his statement and wrote in a social media posting on Tuesday that Naushad who lost his own life while attempting to rescue two others was in fact a “model for today’s youth”.
He added that “My organisation and I are only happy about the compensation given to his family by the government.” Natesan, however, criticised the media for “twisting my statements in a way that would stoke communal hatred”.
In Kozhikode, Naushad’s mother, Afnavi said on Tuesday that Vellapally Natesan’s statement had “hurt” her. “He did not attempt the rescue effort hoping for compensation”, she said between sobs.
Bharatiya Janata Party state president, V. Muraleedharan came to Natesan’s support, stating that the SNDP leader had in fact spoken against the chief minister and not against Naushad. Muraleedharan said his party would react in future, too, if discrimination was shown by the government in its dealing with people from different communities. The BJP leader asked why no action was taken against chief secretary Jiji Thomson for his statement that preaching the gospel was the duty of every Christian.
BJP leader K. Surendran, too, defended Natesan. Surendran wanted to know why no action was taken against Kanthapuram A.P. Aboobacker Musaliar for making a demeaning statement against women. Musaliar had, however, clarified that his statement was quoted out of context.
