Social media flooded with posts after Hindu Seva Kendra present Pratheesh Vishwanath posted a picture on Monday portraying the alleged barbarity of Kerala police on the protestor in the state. The controversial picture shows a policeman placing his knee on a protester’s (Antony) neck thereby causing the latter a great deal of affliction. The National Student Union of India(NSUI Kerala) and INCKerala have accused Mr.K T Jaleel; Kerala Education minister of losing the moral right to continue in office after the Enforcement Directorate(ED) questioned him on Friday apropos Kerala gold smuggling case. In July 2020, Jaleel was accused of links to gold smuggling racket which used UAE consulate staffer to smuggle 30KG gold from UAE to India. Jaleel denied any involvement, saying that the contact with Miss Swapna was regarding a charity work as suggested by the Consulate General of UAE.
In his Tweet, the Hindu Seva Kendra president Pratheesh Vishwanath compared the police action to the unfortunate incident of George Floyd who was killed in Minneapolis, US touched nationwide protests. Footage of the arrest on showed a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on Mr Floyd’s neck while he was pinned to the floor. The key events that led to Mr Floyd’s death happened within just 30 minutes.
Justifying the anger among people over the incident, the state congress president V C Vishnunadh condemned the Kerala police action.
A Congress MLA of Thrithala constituency, VT Balaram took to his Facebook handle condemning the brutal act which was captioned: ‘Citizen and Pinarayi government’
Several social media users contrasted and compared the two incidents and highly condemned the excessive brutality of Kerala police.