Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said that the open defiance of triple lockdown by Poonthura residents early in the day was engineered by the UDF. “The poor people in Poonthura were misled by the fake information spread through the social media by UDF leaders,” the chief minister said during his sunset briefing in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday.
However, Poonthura residents say their concerns cannot be brushed aside so lightly. The disobedience protest has happened at the most inopportune moment, when cases in the area are more than doubling with every passing day.
On Friday, over 100 of the 129 coronavirus positive cases reported in Thiruvananthapuram are from the coastal wards of Poonthura, Manikkavilakom, Puthenpally and Ambalathara.
The chief minister said it was a Youth Congress leader in the area who had been spreading false information through WhatsApp about the antigen tests being conducted in the area.
“The WhatsApp message says that the antigen tests were useless and would throw up positive results even for those with a minor cold. It also says that anyone going to isolation centres on the basis of these antigen tests would contract COVID. There were even messages that said that antigen tests were being done to create a scare in the area and out of hatred for those in Poonthura,” the chief minister said.
Why fake messages worked
Poonthura residents Onmanorama talked to admit that such messages were circulated through WhatsApp groups in the area. "These messages were believable because of two factors," a senior CPI leader in the area said on condition of anonymity.
"One, those who sent these messages had confused antigen tests with antibody tests. Many of us here had not heard of antigen tests but we had heard that antibody tests were highly unreliable,” he said.
Then, when it was known by yesterday that antigen tests were a different kind of test, and as accurate as RT-PCR tests, a conspiracy angle started doing the rounds. “It was said antigen tests were being used in such a mass scale for the first time in Kerala. Why in Poonthura? Was it because we were poor? We thought we were being used as some kind of guinea pigs. It was easy to be convinced of a conspiracy against us," the local CPI veteran said.
Poonthura ward member Peter Solomon, a Kerala Congress (Mani) leader, was even accused of being hand in glove with the administration.
What set off the Friday revolt
However, locals and party leaders Onmanorama talked to said the immediate trigger for Friday's protest was not these social media messages as the chief minister said.
Onmanorama talked to four unconnected individuals in the area to know what happened, and this included those who had taken part in the protest and those who had not. We received a fairly uniform report.
The incident that led to the protest happened in front of a provision store in nearby Puthenpally ward. Some men and women from Poonthura ward, because the shops in their ward were closed, had walked over to the provision store and stood in a long queue.
A police officer came over and asked whether anyone from Poonthura were in the queue. He then reportedly told the shop owner not to sell anything to anyone from coastal areas.
This was taken as an insult and the Poonthura residents returned to their ward and gathered in front of the Church. The anger grew as the crowd grew.
Their main grouse was that shops in Puthenpally and Manikkavilakom wards, which had more COVID-19 cases than Poonthura, were allowed to open when theirs were not. It was also said the police were treating them like animals.
Some people in the crowd then talked about WhatsApp messages that were already doing the rounds and these fake messages, unfortunately, fed the fury.
It was at this moment the first vehicle came that way and the protesters stormed towards it. It happened to be that of health workers who had arrived to collect samples.
A doctor's predicament
Here is how the doctor who was in the vehicle described the incident: "We saw a crowd of 60-70 people approaching. And they surrounded our car and started using abusive language and started hitting the car and windows. On two occasions the driver had to roll down the window and tried convincing them that we had come for swab collection and to please let us through. The people were further agitated on hearing this and threatened to lock us up till they had the attention of the media. They kept saying things like 'if we have the disease then you should get it too', removed their masks and coughed and spat on the car. The staff nurse started crying and we were all begging them from the inside to let us go. After holding us back for five more minutes, they asked us to return back. Upon which we basically fled back and alerted the officials."
The incident was widely condemned. The chief minister and Health Minster K K Shailaja told the coastal folk that they had attacked the very people who had risked their own lives to protect them.
Sorry but still worried
It appears that the Poonthura residents have realised their folly. "We would have blocked any vehicle that came that way then. But we should not have done this to doctors and nurses," said Sylvester, a fisherman who took part in the protest.
Yet, the coastal folk have genuine concerns that needs to be urgently addressed. "Our men and women and kids who had tested positive are placed in crowded rooms with inadequate toilet facilities. They are not even given proper food. The chief minister should at least look into it," the CPI leader said.
The health minister said two 150-bed temporary hospitals would be quickly put in place nearby to accommodate patients in coastal areas.
They also want access to essential goods. Triple lockdown had forced all shops in Poonthura area to shut down. A decision is yet to be taken.
