The "Kiss of Love" event scheduled this Sunday has been postponed to a later date after Bengaluru police refused permission claiming the campaign is obscene act and might trigger untoward incidents in the IT capital of India.
The event organisers VijayanKallil and Dileep met Bengaluru police commissioner MN Reddi on Saturday and later declared on Facebook that they have submitted details of the event to Mr Reddi. The new date for the campaign will be decided after getting a reply, the organisers said.
"In order to allay their fears, we have now issued a detailed reply to the police which clearly outlines our intention behind organising the event. Therefore we are postponing the event (Kiss of Love) to a future date based on their reply," said a Hindustan Times report.
The organisers approached the police seeking protection and assistance in carrying out a peaceful campaign in the city after they received various threatening calls and messages.
The organisers said that by participating in the "Kiss of Love" event they were not going to indulge in any obscene acts nor create a public nuisance. They claimed that they were just trying to bring to people's attention the "rising moral policing in India and in Karnataka".
They said that carrying out a protest is a constitutional right of Indian citizens, hence their campaign is safe under Article 19(1) (a) and that they will certainly get the permission.
"We believe that the Kiss of Love is protected under Art.19(1)(a) of the constitution which guarantees freedom of speech and expression and it is legally wrong to presume that an act is obscene without seeing it in the larger context of the meaning behind the act," Bangalore Mirror quoted the organisers as saying.
"We have alerted the police to a number of judicial precedents that exist on the point, and we hope that they will reconsider their decision so that we can proceed with the event at a different date, as well as guarantee that there are no disruptions," they added.
The Kiss of Love campaign that originated in Kerala in November this year has spread its wings across Kolkata, Hyderabad, Delhi and Mumbai. The campaign aims to protest against the pro-Hindutva groups and activists and against their "moral policing".
