(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Kerala Police foiled the third edition of the kiss of love protest against moral policing and fascism at Aleppey beach on Sunday evening by taking 41 activists into preventive custody.
Southern Range Inspector General of Police Ajith Kumar said that the police had stopped the activists from going to the beach in order to avert a confrontation with those who had converged there already to oppose protest. Similar confrontations had ended in violence during the first and second editions of the protest at Cochin and Calicut.
Unlike in Cochin and Calicut police did not allow spectators to enter the venue. A large contingent of police led by Superintendent of Police Balachandran was deployed in the area in the light of intelligence reports that extremist outfits may intrude into the venue.
Activists of various Hindu organisations confronted the supporters of kiss of love when they started shouting slogans against the police following the arrest of their activists on the Convent Road. A minor scuffle was witnessed between the two. The police later intervened and shifted the protestors from the site. The unique protest was called by a group of Facebook users called “Free Thinkers” to protest the vandalism by Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha volunteers at a hotel in Calicut alleging that immoral activities were going on there.
The previous two editions of the protest held at the port city of Cochin and the northern city of Calicut were marred by violence.
However there was an outpouring of solidarity for the cause from youth and progressive organiztions not only in Kerala but also across the country.
Prior to the main protest against moral policing the town witnessed a different kind of ‘kiss of love’ protest. It was organized by the Aleppey Youth Foundation to register their protest against the kiss of love campaign. Activists of the foundation marked their protest by hugging and kissing abandoned mothers at the Aleppey Mahila Mandiram.
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