TV anchor gets threat from Mangaluru Sri Rama Sena activists

TV anchor gets threat from Mangaluru Sri Rama Sena activists

mangaloretoday.com/ Indian Express

Mangaluru, March 01, 2016: Sindhu Soorykumar, Asianet TV has received over 2,000 abusive calls allegedly from SRS activists and sympathisers of various pro-Hindutva groups, accusing her of calling Durga a “sex worker” during the show reported Indian Express Thiruvananthapuram edition.

On Friday night, she moderated a spirited discussion on a popular Malayalam TV news show on whether celebrating Mahishasur Jayanti could be considered an act of treason.

 

Since then, Sindhu Sooryakumar, chief coordinating editor of Asianet News TV, says she has received over 2,000 abusive calls on her cellphone, allegedly from activists and sympathisers of various pro-Hindutva groups, accusing her of calling Durga a “sex worker” during the show.

The irony: a video of the show, seen by The Indian Express, shows that those two words were read out by V V Rajesh, BJP state secretary, while quoting from pamphlets that he claimed were distributed on the JNU campus and later produced in Parliament by HRD Minister Smriti Irani.

On Monday, Kerala Police arrested five people based on a complaint filed by the journalist. G Sparjan Kumar, Commissioner of Police, Thiruvananthapuram city said. “All of those arrested are connected to BJP, RSS and Hindu groups, including Sri Rama Sena.”

One of the five, from Thiruvananthapuram, told police that he got Sooryakumar’s number from a WhatsApp group called Sanga Dhwani, where a member shared her personal number and asked others to call and abuse her “for a Facebook post on Durga”.

Three others, who were arrested from Kannur, are members of Sri Rama Sena, the pro-Hindutva group involved in the Mangalore pub attack of 2009 and several other cases of moral policing.

“Most of the abusers called me a prostitute and abused me. Some threatened me while others didn’t even know what the charge was. I got a call this morning from someone asking whether I was Durga. Another person called me sometime ago, saying I had posted something against Durga on Facebook, and that he wanted to abuse me for that,” Sindhu said.

BJP-RSS leaders of the state have also remained silent.

The state’s journalists’ union, meanwhile, organised a protest and a march to the Kerala Secretariat on Monday, seeking action against the culprits.