KOZHIKODE: Unleashing a scathing attack on a section of IUML and MSF leaders, former leaders of girls’ collective Haritha said there is a concerted move to denigrate them in public. Addressing a news conference here on Wednesday, former Haritha president Mufeeda Thesni and ex-general secretary Najma Thabsheera said they have been facing cyber attacks for the past few weeks.
In a related development, MSF state vice-president PP Shyjal, who had extended support to the girls, has been removed from the post. Shyjal had openly protested the way the Haritha state committee was dissolved. Targeting IUML state acting secretary PMA Salam specifically, the former Haritha leaders said he has been spreading half-truth about them.
Thabsheera said Salam had said the girls were keener on “roaming around Kozhikode market.” Thesni said some MSF leaders had remarked the girls are “a special kind of feminists who are reluctant to conceive” and “who would go for abortion when they become pregnant”.
“We are being portrayed as arrogant, liars and as those who don’t follow party discipline. Some say we brought ignominy to the party by talking about menstrual cup,” Thesni said. She said that MSF state president P K Navas had said the girls in Haritha are controlled by one ‘cyber goonda’ and the party cannot take any action against him because the person is in possession of some photos and videos of them.
‘Fight is against mindset refusing to accept ideas’
“Navas said if the photos and videos are leaked, then the girls will have no other option but to die by suicide,” Thesni said. She added the Haritha leaders had submitted a five-page complaint against Navas to the IUML leaders on July 27 for his sexually-coloured remarks against them at the MSF meeting on July 24.
“Even the commercial sex workers have their version and we are ready to hear it,” was Navas’s remarks, Thesni said. “We decided to go the Kerala Women’s Commission after 50 days when we realised there is no other way to protect our dignity, she said. Thabsheera said two meetings were convened by the party to address the issue. “Navas stepped in the midst of one meeting and all the earlier decisions were torpedoed. An already prepared document was released as the outcome of the meeting,” she said.
“There is a usage ‘verbal rape after rape’ and our situation is similar to that,” Thabsheera said. The girls asserted their fight is against a mindset that refuses to accept new ideas. ‘We stand with the IUML’s Dalit-minority politics and its constitution,” Thabsheera said. The ousted Haritha leaders hinted at the possibility of forming a collective to pursue their politics, but added it would not be a system parallel to the IUML.
After the press conference, Thabsheera went to the judicial first class magistrate to get her statement recorded under Section 164 of CrPC in the case registered by the police. Navas was arrested and released on bail in the case. Meanwhile, Salam said he is ready to allay the misunderstandings of the girls. “They said they are with the politics of the IUML and we are ready to accommodate them,” Salam told reporters.
GIRLS’ GRIEVANCES