'Convert to Islam within six months': writer gets death threat letter

Noted Malayalam writer K P Ramanunni on Friday filed a police complaint in Kozhikode in connection with a letter he received with threats of physical violence over an article he wrote in a newspaper.

In the letter, received a week ago, the writer was berated for the article -- entitled To dear Hindus and Muslims, from a believer -- in which he sought religious harmony between the two communities.

Ramanunni said he was told to “convert” to Islam within six months or face the fate of T J Joseph, a professor whose right palm was chopped by a group of radical Muslim activists in 2010. “There are people with extremist ideologies using both Hinduism and Islam as a front. The person who wrote this letter appears to be from the second group. The letter says that my article which equates Islam with Hinduism could mislead innocent Muslims,” the writer said.

Joseph, then Malayalam professor at Newman College in Thodupuzha in Idukki district, was assaulted by Popular Front of India activists over portions in a B.Com question paper he had prepared for an internal examination that allegedly denigrated Prophet Mohammed. Joseph’s palm was later re-attached in a surgery. A National Investigation Agency court, in 2015, sentenced 10 persons to eight years’ imprisonment and three others to two years’ imprisonment.

Ramanunni filed a complaint with the City Police Commissioner in Kozhikode. A critically acclaimed author of novels and short stories, the 62-year-old Ramanunni is recipient of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for his first novel, Sufi Paranja Kadha.