Kiss of Love :‘Blaming cops not justifiable’
The charges of police aligning with extremist forces had no basis, says Police
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2014-11-04 06:27 GMT
Kochi: The charges from various quarters that the police failed “miserably” in controlling the huge unruly crowd at the venue of the ‘Kiss of Love” campaign cannot be not justified as not a single person suffered any grievous injury, nor were there incidents of stampede, said Kochi City Police Commissioner K.G.James.
The police chief was replying to charges that the force failed to anticipate such a huge turnout at Marine Drive on Sunday. “In fact we anticipated more people, though I admit there were a few rounds of lathicharge to control the crowd, overall, we managed the situation well. First, we exercised maximum restraint which defeated the outfit’s intention to create trouble. Then we averted a possible volatile situation by taking the organizers of Kiss of Love into preventive custody,” the Commissioner said.
He termed as baseless, reports of police intelligence expecting only around 2,000 people at the venue. “Much of our force was deployed in various batches. The shadow police personnel and Special Branch sleuths were also deployed in strength. The numbers like 2,000 or 3,000 were just the figment of media imagination,” he said.
The officer also said the charges of police aligning with extremist forces had no basis since three cases were taken against outfits including the Shiv Sena at the Central police station.
Earlier, Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala too said there had been no failure on the Law and Order front and the police did a commendable job.
Meanwhile, the Kochi police, facing criticism for the way it handled the Kiss of Love protest, has registered cases against the Shiva Sena and a group of Kiss of Love activists for unlawful assembly and rioting. Cases were registered under Sections 143, 147 and 149 of the IPC dealing with unlawful assembly and rioting, said an official at the Central police station.
Although the police said that cases were registered against all the organisations which had assembled to protest the Kiss of Love show, confusion prevailed on the issue amongst the police in this regard. According to an official at the Central police station, cases were registered only against the Shiva Sena as its members held marches with canes and shouted provocative slogans. He said that he was ignorant of cases being filed against members of SDPI, Samastha, Bajrang Dal and others.
Supporters of Kiss of Love, meanwhile, expressed surprise that cases were registered against them. “The police had told us that no cases would be filed against us”, said Jolly Chirayath who was detained for nearly five hours at the Thevara police station. “Since we can’t take the words of the police for granted, it could be true”, she added.
Meanwhile, Home minister Ramesh Chennithala had denied the contention that the police in Kochi had completely failed in handling the Kiss of Love protest held on Sunday. “There was no failure on the part of the police. What happened in Kochi were only issues connected with mass gatherings of people in a particular place” he said, while responding to criticism that the police had miserably failed in their duty Kochi.
The minister said that government is not against any form of protests. “The police will interfere only when protests lead to a law and order problem”, he added.