'Kiss of love' sparks political spat; Facebook page and accounts hacked

Thiruvananthapuram: The 'Kiss of love' protest held in Kochi on Monday has sparked a spat between CPI(M) leader Pinarayi Vijayan and Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala over the handling of the situation by police.

While Vijayan accused the government of having adopted "double standards" to deal with "unusual protest", Chennithala said there was no lapse on the part of police in handling the situation at Marine Drive in Kochi.

"Ours is a country where the right to protest is allowed as a democratic means... When some form of protest is out of the ordinary, there will be people who support it and oppose it," Vijayan said in a Facebook post.

Criticising the way police had handled the situation, the CPI(M) leader said the government had adopted "double standards" against both sympathisers and opponents of the protest.

"The attack by those who came to stop the 'kiss of love' had actually created unruly scenes at Marine Drive. Police used pepper spray and caned the gathering repeatedly. Police in fact protected those who came to oppose the protest wielding weapons and raising hatred slogans," Vijayan said.

No "moral police" who are out to disturb peaceful life of people should be allowed to have their way, he said. Instead, police had been used to protect those who sought to destroy peace, which is dangerous and shameful for a state like Kerala, he added.

Responding to his critics, Chennithala said there was no lapse on the part of police as they had acted just as they would have in any situation where there had been a huge gathering of people.

Facebook page and accounts hacked

The organisers of the controversial 'Kiss of Love' event against moral policing on Monday claimed that their Facebook page and accounts of at least five persons linked with it have been hacked.

They also alleged that some persons had come to the venue of yesterday's protest with arms to attack them and also suspected that those with links to terror organisation were behind the hacking incident

One of the main organisers of the event, Rahul Pasupalan, told PTI that they had filed a complaint with Kerala Home minister Ramesh Chennithala, seeking action against those behind the hacking.

He said that the page was found hacked this morning.

However, a new page was uploaded a short time later. "We strongly suspect an online team with  which was against us to be behind the hacking", he said.

"They also created vulgar posters of the women members," he alleged.

The organisation, which received much media attention following its novel protest against moral policing, has so far got nearly 90,000 likes.

The much-hyped 'Kiss of Love' yesterday failed to take off as police detained at least 30 organisers and sympathisers, including women, even before they could reach the venue of the symbolic protest against moral policing. They were later let off at night.

A huge gathering of people who had assembled at Marine Drive grounds to witness the Kiss protest were chased away by police.

On a lighter note, he gave credit for the 'success' of the event to those who had opposed them and the police. Activists of the Shiv Sena, district unit of Kerala Students Union and a Muslim outfit took out marches against the event, organised by the 'Free Thinkers', a group of social networking website Facebook users against a recent moral policing incident at a restaurant in Kozhikode.