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Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan on Monday, 19 September, alleged that a senior official, currently working in the office of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, prevented the police from taking action when Khan was reportedly "heckled" over his remarks on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in 2019.
Addressing a press conference at the Raj Bhawan, the governor presented a video from 2019, in which Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader and former Rajya Sabha MP KK Ragesh can be seen as Khan faces protests at Kannur University.
Ragesh is currently the private secretary of CM Vijayan.
Khan further alleged that police officials wanted to take action against the protesters but were unable to do so.
"Police officers told me that they wanted to act, but they were prevented from taking action, because the person who should have instructed police to take action was party to the conspiracy," the governor added.
He also claimed that Ragesh was awarded for this "conspiracy" as he was appointed as the chief minister's private secretary.
"I am not asking the police to investigate it. I want the media to investigate," Khan said.
He also cited Section 124 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which pertains to the intent to compel or restrain the exercise of a lawful power with regard to the president, governor etc.
Khan was at the inauguration of the Indian History Congress in Kannur in 2019 when he purportedly said that the CAA fulfilled the promises made by Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru to non-Muslims who were left in Pakistan after the division of the country.
Due to these remarks, students raised slogans against the governor, who also accused historian Irfan Habib, one of the delegates, of "disrupting" his address.
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