Thiruvananthapuram | A post by Keralam Chief Minister V D Satheesan criticising senior Islamic scholar Kanthapuram A P Aboobacker Musliyar over his alleged anti-women remarks has gone missing from his Facebook page, with the CMO on Thursday attributing it to a technical error.
The post, which was shared on both Facebook and Instagram, is no longer available on Satheesan's Facebook account but remains accessible on his Instagram page.
What the Facebook page contained was a portion of the video of his criticism of the scholar at his press conference on Wednesday, sources said. The same video is available on Satheesan’s Instagram page, they said.
Rejecting reports that the post was removed following protests by Sunni Muslim leaders associated with Kanthapuram, who met Satheesan at the CMO soon after his press conference on Wednesday, an official source said the post disappeared from Facebook due to a technical issue arising from its linking between Instagram and Facebook.
"The post criticising the scholar's statement is still available on Instagram. If the CMO did not want that particular post, it would have been deleted from all social media platforms. Moreover, the video of the full press conference is available on Facebook. So, the reports to the contrary are misleading," the source said.
Meanwhile, the CPI(M) and the BJP criticised Satheesan over the issue.
Mocking the CMO's explanation, CPI(M) leader P Rajeev said there appeared to be a Bermuda Triangle within Meta, in which everything connected with Satheesan seemed to disappear on its own.
"His office says that there is some special system operating only in Keralam that does not exist anywhere else in the world. Everything connected with him seems to disappear on its own. Meta has such a Bermuda Triangle within it," Rajeev told reporters here.
Keralam BJP president Rajeev Chandrasekhar alleged that the Facebook post was withdrawn and termed the move an act of "hypocrisy" and "shamelessness".
"If there is another name for hypocrisy, it is Congress. If there is a name for shamelessness, that too is Congress. By withdrawing the post criticising Kanthapuram Musliyar over women's rights, it has become clear how hollow V D Satheesan's claims about women's empowerment are," Chandrasekhar said in a Facebook post.
He alleged that, as the BJP had warned earlier, it had now become clear that it was not the Congress that decided matters in Keralam, but the Indian Union Muslim League and Jamaat-e-Islami.
"The weak Congress, running from pillar to post to retain power, has now been completely taken over by reactionary forces. These forces are trying to take away women's rights and push Keralam backwards by implementing Sharia law," he alleged.
Addressing a press conference on Wednesday, Satheesan opposed Musliyar's remarks suggesting women should remain confined to their homes, saying such a 19th-century view had no place in progressive Keralam.
Flaying the remarks, the senior Congress leader said that neither the UDF government nor the party would stand by Kanthapuram's position.
Satheesan's remarks drew a sharp response from organisations associated with the Sunni group led by Kanthapuram, which also sought his apology.
"We have absolutely no agreement with Kanthapuram's statement that the Quran says women should remain confined to their homes and that there will be great destruction if women come out into public spaces. Moreover, it is not a position that suits progressive Keralam. We cannot agree with that position in any way," Satheesan had said.
The CM said such views belonged to the 19th century and had no place in the 21st century, stressing that women should be part of the mainstream of society. He said women were not meant to live confined to their homes.
He was reacting to a query on the controversy that erupted after Kanthapuram, speaking at an Islamic conference in Kochi on Sunday, said bringing women onto public platforms would lead to "great destruction" and that Islam prescribed purdah for women to prevent this.
