For posting video of garbage mass on Kozhikode beach after BJP meet, student gets threats

‘You won't die seeing your mother's face,’ was one such slogan, Shameer alleges.

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A Kerala student has alleged that he is being threatened by RSS-BJP members, over a video that showed Kozhikode beach strewn awash with masses of garbage after the recent BJP national council meet.

On Sunday morning, when Shameer Kazim took a stroll on the Kozhikode beach, it was strewn with litter from the three-day BJP national council meet. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also participated in the meet.

Shameer, a post-graduate journalism student at Kozhikode college, videographed the garbage on the beach and uploaded the 1.17-minute video onto Facebook on Sunday.

“Swachh Bharat is a programme that is being implemented in the country with much promotion. Let’s see the condition of Kozhikode beach a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his followers visited the place. There are not just paper waste strewn all over the place, but plastic waste also.”

Screengrab from the video Shameer posted on Facebook

A day after putting up the video, Shameer said that the beach had been cleaned up by BJP members and the tourism department.

However, on Tuesday, BJP-RSS activists held a protest march in Shameer’s hometown Nilambur in Malappuram district, raising slogans and threatening to hack his arms and legs.

Shameer, who is away at his college in Kozhikode, said his family heard threatening slogans directed at him.

“My father told me that their slogans were directed at me, threatening to cause me harm. ‘You won't die seeing your mother's face,’ was one such slogan," Shameer alleges.

However, Shameer says he will not lodge a complaint with the police.

“I am a journalism student and I do not represent any political party by posting the video. Filing a police complaint will only cause trouble for me, especially with regard to my academics," Shameer says.

Responding on Shameer's video that has since been viewed more than 2 lakh times, a BJP source said that the area had been cleaned during Sunday evening after the BJP council meet got over. Shamber had taken the video in the afternoon, before the council meeting says the source.

"The event got over quite late on Saturday and this video was taken early on Sunday morning. We got the area cleaned by Sunday afternoon itself," he said.