A leading jewellery company in Kerala on Sunday announced that it has withdrawn its advertisements from Malayalam media group Mathrubhumi following a controversy over a novel that the group was serialising in a weekly magazine.

“Our media plan is decided by our advertising agency based on circulation and readership,” Bhima Jewellery said in a Facebook post, without naming the media group. “Bhima is a 94-year-old brand and gives importance to public sentiments and wishes to stay away from controversies. So we have informed our advertising agency to put our ads to the publication concerned in abeyance.”

While a number of people hailed the jewellery company’s decision, many threatened to boycott it. A campaign against Bhima Jewellery is slowly gaining momentum on social media.

Only three chapters of writer S Hareesh’s novel Meesha (Moustache) had been published before he decided last month not to publish the remaining parts, citing threats from followers of Hindutva organisations. “I am so weak to take on the people who rule the country,” Hareesh had then said. “I worked on the novel for five long years.”

On Thursday, the Supreme Court reserved its order on a petition seeking to ban the circulation of the novel’s excerpts on the internet. The state and Central governments have opposed the plea.

Two days after Hareesh decided to withdraw the novel, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan urged him to continue writing boldly, saying it will “serve as a reply to those who create controversy”. Former chief minister and Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader VS Achuthanandan, and writers M Mukundan, K Satchidanandan, Anita Nair, Unni R and KR Meera have also come out in support of the novelist.

Hareesh, who works at the state revenue department, won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi award in 2016 for his collection of stories titled Aadam. His first collection of stories was titled Rasavidyayude Charithram.