“Kalamassery blasts being used by Kerala government against BJP,” says Union Minister Muraleedharan

New Delhi [India]: Union Minister V Muraleedharan on Tuesday alleged that the October 29 blasts at a prayer meeting in Kerala’s Kalamassey was being “utilised” by the State government against the Bharatiya Janata Party.

“The agencies of the government of India are already on the job of investigating the bomb blasts that happened in the prayer meeting in Kerala…. This issue of the bomb blast is being utilised by the state government to raise allegations against the BJP and in particular against Union Minister Rajeev Chandrashekar,” Muraleedharan said today.

The minister, who hails from Kerala had previously alleged that his state was becoming a “hotbed” of incidents that could be called terrorist acts. The union minister also expressed his concerns on the state becoming vulnerable to terrorist acts.

“It is the failure of intelligence mechanisms, law and order mechanisms, state police and the Home Ministry of the State…What are the steps being undertaken by the state government to ensure that it does not happen again?” Muraleedhan said today
“The CM (Pinarayi Vijayan) interacted with the media, but he didn’t say anything about the dangerous situation, where an individual can make IEDs and plant them in various crowded places, and get away with it, this is a very dangerous situation,” Muraleedharan said.

The Union Minister further claimed that the explosions on Sunday, which claimed the lives of three people and over 50 sustained injuries, indicated a failure of the state police. Six persons who were injured in Sunday’s explosions are in a critical condition.

Chief Minister Vijayan had on Monday hit out at Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s claim that the Left government in Kerala was showing growing tolerance towards “radicalism and radicalisation”. He said that the Union Minister had been spewing not just poison, but deadly poison in a bid to dent the secular credentials of Kerala.

Chandrashekar, after visiting the injured at Government Medical College in Kalamassery said, “…Under CM Pinarayi Vijayan, Kerala has shown increasing tolerance towards radical elements and radicalization. Whether it is the Kozhikode attempt to burn a train which would have caused, if he had succeeded over 200-300 deaths and the characterization of that person as being mentally ill till it was revealed that he was an ISIS sympathizer, and that was a deliberate attempt at terrorism. There is a history of appeasement of radical elements by both the Congress and the Left in Kerala…”

On Sunday, Vijayan had without directly naming Chandrasekhar slammed the Union Minister for his “appeasement politics”. “Those who’re poisonous will keep spitting poison…one of the Union Minister made a statement that I am doing appeasement politics and protesting against Israel…he is a minister and he should give some minimum respect to the investigating agencies, the probe is underway…in such a serious incident, at such an early stage, they are making such statements targeting a few set of people,” the Kerala Chief Minister had said.

He further said the Union Minister’s statement is based on their communal agenda but Kerala doesn’t have such an agenda, Kerala always stood against communalism.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar had on Sunday in a post on X criticised the Kerala CM for staging pro-Palestine protests on a day when there had been a blast in his state.

“Dirty shameless appeasement politics by a discredited CM (and HM) @pinarayivijayan besieged by corruption charges Sitting in Delhi and protesting against Israel, when in Kerala open calls by Terrorist Hamas for Jihad is causing attacks and bomb blasts on innocent Christians,” Chandrasekhar posted on X.

Meanwhile, today the Cyber Cell of Kerala Police suo motu registered a case against Rajeev Chandrasekhar in Kerala for allegedly promoting religious hatred between different groups.
The Union Minister has been charged under Sections 153 (a) (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence) of the Indian Penal Code and section 120 (o) (causing nuisance and violation of public order) of the Kerala Police Act.

On Monday, BJP National President J P Nadda who was in Thiruvananthapuram accused the Left Democractic Front (LDF) led Kerala government of weak law and order in the state.
Noting the participation virtually of Hamas leader Khaled Mashal in a pro-Palestine rally in the State, Nadda lashed out at the Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan government’s soft attitude towards radical forces.

A special investigation team (SIT) probing Sunday’s explosions at a Jehovah’s Witnesses religious gathering at Kalamassery took the accused Dominic Martin to his house at Athani near the Cochin international airport, Nedumbassery, for evidence collection this morning.
Police has invoked the provisions of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) against Martin, who will be presented before the Principal District and Sessions Court in Kochi today.

Kochi Police had arrested Martin at 7 pm on Monday based on a self-made confession video posted on Facebook claiming responsibility for the blasts at the Zamra International Convention Centre in Kalamassery where over 2,000 followers of Jehovah’s Witnesses, a Christian sect, had gathered for a prayer meeting on Sunday.

Following the incidents, Chief Minister Vijayan announced a 20-member probe team to investigate the matter.