The Story of Resilience: A Nationalist News Portal’s Fight for Survival Against Threats, Hacking, and Harassment in Kerala
Marunadan Malayali is a popular Malayalam online news portal established by Shajan Scaria, who is a familiar face among Malayalis. The portal has gained immense popularity in the last 4–5 years due to its unbiased reporting. Shajan Scaria is known for calling a spade a spade, and as a result, he has many enemies, mainly from the Communist/Islamist ecosystem. He has been relentlessly exposing corruption, misgovernance, arrogance, anti-majority, and pro-minority stances of the Kerala state government. It is also a fact that some of their reports have been critical of the BJP as well. However, it can safely be said that this portal is nationalistic.
There was an incident last week where he was attacked by a Communist supporter at the London airport. Such is the level of frustration that the Communists have with Shajan. A few days ago, a popular North Kerala Communist MLA, openly declared that he would ensure Marunadan Malayali is closed, even if it is for a day. Shajan had made several startling revelations about this MLA, through his channel a couple of months ago. Can you imagine an elected representative of the people openly talking like a goonda? If this was an MLA in UP, it would have been flashed across the channels. The FB page of this MLA is filled with open threats against Shajan, and his supporters. As a result, people are scared to even support Shajan openly.
Shajan Scaria came out with a video last evening on Facebook, making a passionate appeal to the supporters of Marunadan Malayali. In the video, he openly said that he has been waging a lone fight against the Communists & Islamists and has become a target of those forces. He also made a shocking revelation that his Facebook channel with around 1 million followers was hacked a couple of days ago. Although they are trying to recover the page, they have not been successful yet. He added that as of now, it is not clear who is behind this, although it’s no rocket science, especially when Communist politicians have openly threatened him. He added that the Communists are now using the entire might of the government machinery by filing various cases in different districts of Kerala. As a result, he has been receiving calls from several police stations across the state. The objective is simple — to find legal loopholes and trouble him and also to ensure that he is unable to work properly. He mentioned that according to his sources, his phone is also being tapped as of now.
Marunadan has set up two new Facebook pages and has asked nationalists who value his work to like and subscribe to the pages and spread the message. Leading Malayali outlets like Manorama and Mathrubhumi are essentially sold out, working according to the agenda set by these forces. Marunadan has been giving them a tough fight by asking relevant questions and exposing all those who work against the nation. The closure of Marunadan Malayali would effectively ensure that the media is once again fully under the control of Communists and Islamists. I hope the BJP leadership in Kerala and the center intervene on this matter. I hope this state-sponsored harassment is ended soon!
