Pon Radhakrishnan harassed again in Sabarimala

Chennai: The Kerala police 'humiliated' Union Minister of State for Finance and Shipping Pon Radhakrishnan again on Thursday. The Minister was forced to spend 45 minutes on the road as police checked his vehicle, say party sources.
While he was returning from Sabarimala after offering prayers at Lord Ayyappa temple, the Kerala police 'deliberately' blocked the Union Minister's vehicle several times, the party has alleged.

Refuting the charge that the police targeted him, Mr Radhakrishnan claimed that the Kerala government and police's primary target was devotees visiting Sabarimala.

"They don't want devotees to visit Sabarimala. There is no place (for Ayyappa devotees) to stay there. They are now restricting movement too as never before in the past….they are making a series of blunders," he said.

The Minister, however, refused to discuss the incident involving the altercation between him and the police SP at Nilackal on Wednesday but said the Kerala government has engineered a master plan to "destroy the Lord Ayyappa Swamy temple."

Mr Radhakrishnan's vehicle was intercepted when he was returning from Lord Ayyappa temple on Thursday and another vehicle, a part of his convoy, was stopped on suspicion that Sabarimala protesters were travelling in it. However, party workers alleged that their car was stopped at several places by police and they were subjected to harassment. They were allowed to go only after the Minister spoke to the officials.

On Tuesday, the Union minister had engaged in a brief war of words with the police in Nilackal over the restrictions on private vehicles heading for Pamba, the last entry point to the Lord Ayyappa shrine. Though SP Yatish Chandra, had said Radhakrishnan could travel in his official vehicle, he proceeded to Pamba from Nilackal in a state-run KSRTC bus as a mark of protest against the restrictions that were “causing difficulties” for pilgrims. “If this is the treatment meted out against me (a Central minister) just imagine what would be the fate of other devotees,” he said and asserted that Lord Ayyappa temple belonged to Ayyappan devotees and not the Kerala government.

It was a shame that the police have filed cases against those who lighted camphor for the Lord and discouraged devotees from travelling in groups or singing bhajans together.

Kerala govt will be sent packing home, communists will be decimated: BJP

Contending that police cannot stop a Central minister’s car or his
convoy for any reason, BJP Yuva Morcha’s All India vice president A.P. Muruganandam asserted that Kerala government’s growing hatred for Lord Ayyappa devotees only signalled the last days of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s government. “Pinarayi’s ego will literally decimate the Communist party… he will go down the history as captain of Titanic ship called CPI (M),” he said.

The BJP, he said would take up the issue of the SP misbehaving with the Minister and also organise a bandh in Kerala and Tamil Nadu soon. On Thursday, following the ‘harsh’ treatment meted out to Mr. Radhakrishnan, the BJP members staged protest in Kanyakumari district.

The Kerala police have filed cases against 2,600 BJP members for protesting against the government decision to impose restrictions on Ayyappa devotees, Muruganandam said.

“The situation in Sabarimala is not what it used to be in the past. I don’t think, police there appear to treat the devotees on humanitarian grounds. No one walks the area wearing shoes in the past. But not now. The arrest of Ayyappa devotees has become a regular affair in Sabarimala. No one can bear this. It remains desolate like a battlefield,” Radhakrishnan described shortly after returning from his pilgrimage to Sabarimala.

He claimed there are barricades all around and the police claimed the barricades were meant to prevent fringe elements from entering the temple. “The question is how will they identify the fringe elements?” he asked.

On his video going viral in the social media, Radhakrishnan said it doesn’t matter. What is important was the big mandapam, where bhajans are held wears a deserted look now.