Strong reaction against communal remark on Kerala couple’s viral dance video

Kochi: A dance video showing two medical students of Thrissur Medical College — Janaki M Omkumar, a Hindu, and Naveen K Razak, a Muslim — went viral last week. The due danced to Boney M’s Rasputin in their college. Controversy ensued when an advocate on Facebook made communal, divisive comments about the dua, because of Razak’s religion.

The advocate, Krishna Raj, compared the case to that of another girl, Nimisha, a Hindu girl from Kerala, who joined Daesh after marrying a Christian man who had converted to Islam and joined Daesh later.

“Janaki & Naveen. Dance of two students from Thrissur Medical College has gone viral Students are Janaki Omkumar and Naveen K Razak. Something is fishy about this. Better if Janaki’s parents can be more cautious. Nimisha’s mother has shown us that u needn’t if you have taken proper care. Let’s pray for Janaki’s husband Omkumar and his wife,” Raj wrote on Facebook.

The communal remark trigged a massive response, and support for the duo. On Friday evening, the college union came up with yet another video of more students dancing to the same music. The video was posted with hashtag #resisthate and captioned, “If your plan is to hate, then we have decided to resist”.

The students’ union at the Cochin University of Science and Technology in Kochi, led by the CPM’s Students’ Federation of India, announced a dance challenge with cash prizes in solidarity with Janaki and Naveen. A member of the union, Abhinav Krishna, said, “We also borrowed the term ‘Entho oru panthikedu (there’s something fishy)’ from the lawyer’s comments for our dance challenge. We want to register our protest at those making such hateful comments to show that these have no place in Kerala.”

The video of the medical students went viral last week, with many of the users sharing them on Instagram and other social media handles. Janaki and Naveen are part of the 25-member dance team at Thrissur Medical College. Their video was filmed by their friend Musthak Ali. They said that they were planning to do another fun reel soon and would like to dance with the other team members. Though Janaki and Naveen have posted several solo acts and some moves along with Viking members, none of them got such wide appreciation.