Kerala Facebook user booked for controversial comment on BJP voters over Kathua

"Justice should prevail even if it means shooting the 31% of people (BJP's vote share in 2014 LS polls) who supported Hindutva terrorism. Democracy is for every individual, whatever be the number of people standing against it," Deepak had wrote.

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Weeks after a Facebook user made a controversial remark against BJP voters in the backdrop of the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua, Kerala police booked him on Friday.

The cyber police in Thiruvananthapuram registered a case against Deepak Sankaranarayanan, a resident of Bengaluru, whose post in the backdrop of the Kathua incident, had snowballed into a major controversy.

Deepak had on April 12 written that the 10 accused in the case were not only the ones responsible for the heinous crime against the minor girl, but that it was carried out with the consent of 31% of the Indian democracy. (BJP's vote share in the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 was 31%).

His post in Malayalam read: "Justice should prevail even if it means shooting the 31% of people (this is twice the causality during second world war) who supported Hindutva terrorism. Democracy is for every individual, whatever be the number of people standing against it."

Deepak's remark was dubbed as a call for violence by the supporters of the right wing, and soon, he came under severe social media attack.

While Deepak had taken down the post and issued a clarification on April 16 that his post was a "call for justice an individual irrespective of the number of people opposing it, which is the very basic of our great constitution."

However, Deepak's clarification did not stop BJP state media coordinator Sandeep from filing a complaint against him. According to the police, the complaint was filed on Thursday with the state's DGP.

"After taking legal opinion, the DGP forwarded the complaint to us. We have booked Deepak under sections 153 A and 153 B of the IPC, for promoting enimity between religious groups. More sections under the IT Act will be slapped on him after scrutiny. It is a non-bailable offence and we will soon record his statement," the cyber police said.

Notably, the state's Finance Minister Thomas Isaac had taken note of the social media attack on Deepak and issued a statement backing him. In his Facebook post, Isaac said that Deepak's words were "twisted" and a false propaganda was being unleashed on him.

Also read: 'He didn’t call for violence': Kerala FM backs man who made controversial comment on BJP voters