Police detain Maharaja's College students for unacceptable' graffiti

Kochi: The Central police on Tuesday detained six students of Maharaja's College based on the principal's complaint that they were illegally staying in classrooms and defacing walls on the campus with unacceptable graffiti. Students, however, described it as yet another incident of police Raj acting against dissenting expressions. They said they were held for pasting posters quoting verses of  Kureepuzha Sreekumar. The contentious poem goes like this: “The axe of the Hindu told the axe of the Muslim; hey, the taste of blood we drank today was the same.”

Officers at the Central station official denied charges saying the action was for illegally occupying classrooms and vandalising walls. Maharaja’s College principal Dr N.L. Beena told DC that she had filed a complaint against a group of students three weeks ago as they were found residing in the classrooms. She also denied reports that she had lodged a complaint against the poem of Sreekumar. “The graffiti mentioned in my complaint was different, and the language in that was unacceptable on any academic campus,” she said.