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Ex-Kerala Minister seeks apology for 'hate speech'; alleges conspiracy

  • Balakrishna Pillai apologises for his alleged hate-speech
  • Pillai alleges that the audio clip was edited out of context to show him in bad light. 
  • His son KB Ganesh Kumar also seeks apology for his father's fault.
Ganeshkumar seeks apology after hate speech by Balakrishna Pillai

After his speech came under sharp criticism for its alleged anti-minority content, Kerala Congress (B) chairman and former minister R Balakrishna Pillai has come up with an explanation in which he alleged a conspiracy in circulating an edited version of the talk. He also expressed unreserved apology if the statements had hurt the sentiments of any community or individual.

 

“You may call me by any name; But please don’t brand me as anti-minority,” Pillai said at a press conference on Tuesday.
 

Also read: Former Kerala minister in trouble for mocking Islamic prayer call


“The audio clip of the speech, which is being circulated in my name, is edited with ulterior motives. The one hour forty minute long speech was cut short to 35 minutes and mixed up so as to show me as an anti-Muslim,” he said. “I must be completely out of my mind to term the Islamic prayer call as the barking of dogs,” he added.

 

The Kerala Congress (B) chairman had reportedly compared the call for namas to the barking of dogs. Some Muslim organisations had taken out a protest march after the audio clip of the speech got widely circulated on the social media. 

 

Pillai said that he was a believer and used to offer prayers at five Masjids every year. “It was an internal meeting of Nair community. Normally, (media) do not report community gatherings. People discuss many things at such meetings. At the meeting of the Nair Service Society (NSS) at Pathanapuram the other day, I was actually suggesting the community members to imbibe the spirit of Christian and Muslim communities and their ways of functioning,” he added.  But somebody recorded the talk, edited it so as to show me in a bad light. The part of the talk in which he referred to the street dog menace was intentionally stitched in with the reference to the call for namas to create misunderstanding, he explained.  

 

Earlier, KB Ganesh Kumar MLA, son of Pillai, had also publicly apologized for the alleged anti-minority statement of his father. “I don’t personally believe that my father would say so. But still, if the news is true, I tender my unreserved apologies,” he said at a public meeting on Monday evening.

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