The 'Kiss of Love' protesters expressing their feelings before the police carted them away
Very few participants at Kochi's "Kiss of Love" found time to express their feelings this afternoon. Almost before it began, the controversial protest against moral policing was scuttled - with the police carting away 50 of the organisers and participants amid cheers by the saffron groups, which were protesting against the protest.
The police said they were taking the organisers in "preventive custody" since the situation was volatile. The organisers - Free Thinkers, a group of Facebook users - were pushing ahead with the programme despite the lack of police approval.
The organisers had asked couples to assemble at Kochi's Ernakulam Law College in Kochi at 5 pm today. They were then to proceed to the main venue - the Marine drive grounds - and express their love for each other by kissing, holding hands or in any other way.
The event had generated a lot of political heat, with the Bajrang Dal - practically unheard of in the state before - and the Kerala Students Union, being up in arms against it. The Youth Congress and Students Federation of India were supporting the campaign.
But the publicity pushed up the footfall. Where the organisers were expecting a few hundreds, thousands started assembling since noon. The Bajrang Dal, the Kerala Students Union and a Muslim outfit, meanwhile, took out a counter-march.
A strong police contingent was posted at the Marine Drive Grounds and as the "Kiss of Love" participants approached, they were promptly bundled off to a waiting police van.
Amid the chaos and sloganeering, NDTV caught up with two girls who had sneaked out of home to express solidarity with the movement. "This is such a masculine space. Forget about expressing love, we can't express ourselves mostly," said one of them.
But the majority, including Sidharth and Ramaman - both in their early twenties - thought the movement was a shame to Indian culture. "We just came here out of curiosity," they insisted.
The "Kiss of Love" gained momentum as a Facebook protest after a coffee shop in Kozhikode was vandalised last week, allegedly by members of a youth wing affiliated to the BJP. They claimed the cafe was used by young students for dates.