Moral police assault journalist and her husband, claiming they were unmarried

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In yet another incident of moral policing in Kerala a married couple were interrogated and attacked by strangers in Thiruvananthapuram district. Jisha Elizabeth, a journalist with Madhyamam daily and her husband John Aloor were attacked by a gang of moral police on Sunday while they were working inside John’s advertising agency located near the couple’s apartment. “Since I was down with fever and was alone at home, my husband asked me to accompany him to his office as he had some urgent work. Since it was a Sunday, we were alone in the office and a group of people rang the bell in a rude fashion. When I opened the door, they asked me what was going on inside and they also said that a man and woman had been inside for a long time,” Jisha recalled the incident through a Facebook post. “I showed them my ‘Thaali’, but they said you will get ‘Thaali’ for Rs 50 in the market,” Jisha wrote. She says that when she tried to capture the video of the attack in her mobile phone those men tried to capture the cell phone. In the video captured by Jisha it is clear that the couple tried to convince the men that they were married, but the gang were simply not convinced. “We have identified the people and have taken case against them, we reached the spot immediately after we got the information,” Thiruvananthapuram Museum police station Sub Inspector Ajithkumar told The News Minute. Jisha told media that since the police reached the spot immediately they were saved from vicious attacks. Mathrubhumi has posted a video of the incident, captured on Jisha's phone. This is not the first incident in Kerala that demonstrates a prevalent unhealthy interest in ’neighbor’s affairs.’ In February a brother sister duo hailing from Kozhikode in Kerala were attacked by a gang of moral police. In different incidents two people were beaten to death by moral police gangs in Palakkad and Chavakkad few months ago. A teenager had committed suicide in Thrissur as she was questioned by her neighbors for talking a boy inside her house and depressed over her death her uncle later committed suicide. Last year in October, a group of Yuva Morcha activists vandalised a coffee shop in Calicut claiming that they were "forced to react" against "immoral activities" in public places.

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