The Kerala High Court on Wednesday told the police not to take any coercive action against Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar till December 14, The Hindu reported.
The police have filed two cases against Chandrasekhar for allegedly promoting enmity between different groups through his social media posts about blasts that took place at a convention centre of the Christian group Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Ernakulam district on October 29. The blasts, which occurred in the Kalamassery municipality area, left six persons dead.
The Union minister of state for electronics and information technology had accused the Kerala government of turning a blind eye towards outfits that were allegedly supporting the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Chandrasekhar had said that Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was protesting against Israel in New Delhi while “open calls by terrorist Hamas for jihad is causing attacks and bomb blasts on innocent Christians”.
However, hours after the blasts, a man named Dominic Martin claimed responsibility for them on social media and said that he was enraged at the teachings of the Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation. The police arrested Martin on October 30 and he is currently in judicial custody.
On Wednesday, Senior Advocate Mahesh Jethmalani, appearing for Chandrasekhar, told the High Court that the allegations against the minister were baseless and politically motivated, Bar and Bench reported. He contended that Chandrasekhar had not made statements against any community and only pointed out the “appeasement politics” at play in Kerala.
One of the cases against the minister was filed based on a complaint by P Sarin, the convener of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee’s digital media cell. The other one was filed on the basis of a complaint by Sub-Inspector Pramod YT of the Kochi Police’s cyber cell.
On November 4, the Kerala Police said that they had filed a total of 54 cases in connection with allegedly inflammatory social media posts about the blasts.
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