Kozhikode: A social media campaign has commenced asking the Sangh Parivar leaders in the state not to exploit the death of a 55-year-old man near the venue where Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was holding a protest over the Sabarimala issue in Thiruvananthapuram. A dawn-to-dusk hartal has been called by the BJP in Kerala on Friday over his death apparently in a bid to score political brownie points over its adversaries.
Venugopalan Nair, a resident of Muttada near here, died on Thursday evening after he immolated himself a few hours earlier. The BJP state leadership claimed that the deceased was a devotee of Lord Ayyappa and took the extreme step upset over the Supreme Court nod for young women to enter the Sabarimala temple.
As the hartal paralysed Kerala as usual, social media users were active as they urged BJP state chief not to consider them as RSS or BJP martyrs in case they die under any mysterious circumstances. This was in reference to the death of Venugopalan Nair, which is widely perceived to be caused by personal problems.
The campaigners displayed the screenshots of their email sent to BJP state chief P S Sreedharan Pillai. The mailers asked him not to include their names on the list of 'balidanis', the word used by the Hindutva outfits to refer to the martyrs.
“Mister President, I do not work for any Sangh outfits. I hereby mark my dissent on including my name in the list of your martyrs, if I die under any mysterious circumstances,” read one email. The emails were sent to bjpkeralaoffice@gmail.com.
The users have put a hashtag #DissentNote along with their posts.
Cantonment police, Thiruvananthapuram, meanwhile said they are yet to begin a detailed probe into the death and the circumstances that led to the immolation of Venugopalan Nair, who used to work as a plumber and electrician. His statement was recorded by the judicial first-class magistrate as he was admitted at the Medical College Hospital with nearly 90 per cent burns.
He did not mention anything regarding his connection with any party or recent controversies surrounding Lord Ayyappa temple, the police stated. The police had also said that he had committed suicide due to personal reasons.
"The deceased, in his dying declaration given to the Magistrate, said he resorted to the act due to depression and ran frantic towards the protest venue after setting himself on fire," the police said in a release.
