Thomas was speaking at the Ramayana Fest event in Thrissur as Kerala marks the annual ‘Ramayana Month’. (file) Thomas was speaking at the Ramayana Fest event in Thrissur as Kerala marks the annual ‘Ramayana Month’. (file)

Kerala’s suspended DGP Jacob Thomas addressing public event recently said chanting of Jai Shri Ram should be done more vigorously. “Have we come to a situation where we cannot even chant Jai Shri Ram. It’s high time we used the chant, that too with more vigour.” Thomas was speaking at the Ramayana Fest event in Thrissur as Kerala marks the annual ‘Ramayana Month’.

Asserting that Lord Ram is not hailed anymore, Thomas said, “Is Lord Ram really in our land now? Did we reach a situation where we can’t hail Lord Ram? If our minds have reached a state where we can not hail Ram, then we must think if we have become evil.”

Thomas’ statement comes at a time when several incidents of people getting harassed for not chanting Jai Shri Ram have come to light from across the country.

Read in Malayalam

Meanwhile, in a setback to the Kerala government, the Ernakulam bench of Central Administrative Tribunal had on Monday ordered that Thomas, who has been under suspension over the last one-and-a-half years, should be immediately reinstated in a post equivalent to his rank.

The seniormost IPS officer in Kerala was suspended in December 2017 after he criticised the government’s rescue efforts in the aftermath of Cyclone Okhi.

The government has since extended his suspension period “… suspension cannot take the form of punishment. Suspension from service of an employee is solely to be resorted to in order to facilitate an impartial inquiry…Mechanically ordering continuance of the suspension period brings no credit to a model employer,’’ said the bench of E K Bharat Bhushan.

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