The Kerala police resorted to lathi charge on members of the Fraternity Movement, a students organisation, for carrying out a protest march against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) on Monday, March 11. Nine students were booked and among them, eight students were arrested. Six students, who sustained injuries, are undergoing treatment at Beach Hospital in Kozhikode.
The march started from Kozhikode Corporation and reached the Akashvani office (All India Radio) near the beach around 11 pm. According to Fraternity Movement members, around a hundred members were attacked by the police without any provocation. They also said that women students were harassed by the male police personnel.
Speaking to TNM, Fraternity Movement’s Kozhikode district secretariat member Shaheen Ahemmed said that the police started to hit the protesters with a lathi.
“There was no rush on the road or the beach because it was the beginning of the Ramadan month. We blocked one side of the road but vehicles were able to pass on the other side. During the inaugural speech of the protest, police personnel came in a bus and started to arrest the workers. Police started a lathi charge after we resisted the arrest,” Shaheen said, adding that they had no intention to cause trouble and would have dispersed after two speeches.
According to the First Information Report (FIR), the protesters obstructed the traffic on the public road and flouted the rules. It also said the police personnel were injured due to the force used by the protesters.
The nine students were booked under several sections of the Indian Penal code, including sections 147 (punishment for rioting), 143 (unlawful assembly), 283 (causing danger, obstruction or injury to any person in any public way) 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), 332 ( voluntarily causing harm in order to deter a public worker from doing his duty) and 177(e) of Kerala Police Act 2011.
Kozhikode South constituency MLA Ahamed Devarkovil told TNM that the incident has not come to his attention and that he will look into it.
Meanwhile, Thiruvananthapuram Museum police on Monday, March 11 booked 124 members belonging to Fraternity Movement, Muslim Students Federation and Welfare Party for carrying out a protest march to Raj Bhavan against Citizenship Amendment Act. Ernakulam police booked seven Youth Congress activists under Railway Act for blocking Maveli Express as part of the CAA protest. Aluva police booked around 500 Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) activists for staging a demonstration against the implementation of CAA.