Noted Malayalam poet Kureepuzha Sreekumar was attacked last evening in Kollam, allegedly by right-wing activists. Six men were arrested. One of them is a member of the local BJP and the panchayat, the police said.
Sreekumar was accosted by the group when he was about to leave the venue of a public function where he was a guest speaker. He was threatened, verbally abused and jostled around, the police said.
“If I did not have a human chain of protection around me, they would have even physically attacked me. But I am not scared,” Kureepuzha Sreekumar said.
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The arrests took place this morning after the 62-year-old poet filed a complaint with the police. “Of the six persons arrested, one is a BJP and panchayat member,” said local police officer B Asokan.
The poet said the assailants were upset by the poet’s address at the function, in which he spoke of the ongoing year-long friction between the Dalits and the upper caste Nairs in the area over the building of a boundary wall of a local temple.
On Sunday, a protest was planned in the area, but the protesters did not get clearance from the police. As they gathered, a police crackdown began. While it was on, activists of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological mentor of the BJP, jeered and raised anti-Dalit slogans, the poet said in his speech.
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