RSS disowns Mohandas, condemns remarks

Thiruvananthapuram: The RSS on Tuesday condemned the controversial remarks made by right-wing political observer T G Mohandas on the recent students’ agitation in New Delhi, saying they were his “personal thoughts” and deserved to be denounced.

In a statement, senior RSS functionary K B Sreekumar clarified that Mohandas was not an RSS office-bearer at any level. “T G Mohandas’s comments on the recent protest are his personal thoughts. He is not an RSS official at any level. RSS doesn’t agree with his views and they should be condemned in every highest possible manner,” Sreekumar said.

In a video posted on his YouTube channel on July 26, Mohandas had threatened that he “would have shot” the protestors at Jantar Mantar if he were in control. A former head of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s State intellectual cell, he had said in another video that secular women who take part in protests “enjoy being gangraped.”

The clarification came a day after Mohandas’s remarks triggered widespread protests in Kerala and on social media, prompting the pro-CPI student outfit All India Students’ Federation (AISF) to lodge a police complaint against him.

In its complaint to the State Police Chief, the AISF had alleged that Mohandas had called for student protesters to be “shot dead”, amounting to an appeal for violence and mass killing.

According to the complaint, publicly advocating the use of state force to open fire on protesting students, with the possibility of deaths and grievous injuries, was an extremely dangerous statement that promoted violence, undermined the value of human life and had the potential to create fear and social unrest.

The AISF sought registration of a criminal case against Mohandas under all applicable legal provisions and called for an investigation into the YouTube channel that carried the remarks, the source of the video, digital records and its circulation across social media platforms.

Former chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has also condemned Mohandas’s remarks and demanded action against him. In a Facebook post, Vijayan alleged that the statements reflected the Sangh Parivar’s mindset of “eliminating dissent”. He also accused the UDF government of reducing the police and the legal system to mere spectators to appease the RSS. —- give a hard-hitting headline