Kochi: After a seven-hour protest that ended in the wee hours of Monday, youth congress workers who were arrested for waving black flags at the Kerala chief minister and other ministers got bail.
The protest that started on Monday evening ended around 2 am today. The Congress workers also burned the chief minister in effigy at the police station premises. As the protest escalated, police produced the arrested Youth Congress workers before Ernakulam District Magistrate Court after a health checkup.
Supported by a large number of party workers, Congress leaders, including Ernakulam MP Hibi Eden, MLAs Uma Thomas, T J Vinod, and Anwar Sadath, alleged that the police misbehaved with them when they reached Palarivattom police station to inquire about the reason behind refusing to grant station bail to the arrested Congress workers.
The Congress leaders claimed that the police had initially agreed to release the party workers on station bail. However, the police later refused, following the intervention of local CPM leaders, they alleged.
Earlier, the Congress workers were rounded up by the police after displaying black flags towards the convoy of the chief minister and his cabinet colleagues passing through the Palarivattom area.
The chief minister and the ministers are staying in Kochi on Tuesday. They arrived here to participate in the Nava Kerala Sadas programme in four assembly constituencies, which was initially scheduled for December 9 but was deferred following the death of CPI leader Kanam Rajendran.
(With PTI inputs)
