Rehana Fathima, a controversial ultra-left wing activist who had tried to desecrate the holy shrine of Sabarimala by entering it along with her friends in 2018, has been sacked by state-run telecom firm BSNL.
According to the reports, Fathima was removed from her job after BSNL authorities after a probe found that her Facebook messages had incited communal tension and she had violated service rules.
Fathima posted a message today on her Facebook account informing that she has been ordered “mandatory retirement” from BSNL. She said that BSNL suspended her, stalled her promotion, and finally sacked her in fear of religious sentiments of some customers. She lamented that even the employee unions also refused to defend her. In her post, she also alleged some dealings to benefit Reliance Jio at the cost of BSNL, and asked if now she will be banished for Facebook also as Facebook has bought shares in Jio. She also indicated that she might contest the decision of BSNL in court.
Earlier, she was transferred to the Palarivattom telephone exchange in Kochi, where she was kept away from interacting with the public. The state-run BSNL had even initiated disciplinary procedures against Rehana Fathima and had carried out an internal enquiry after she had tried to desecrate the holy temple Sabarimala temple by entering it.
For the past 18 months, she was under suspension after BSNL had received complaints from the public about her abusive pictures and videos, which had hurt religious sentiments.
Convicted for cheque-fraud case
Rehana Fathima was also convicted in a cheque-fraud case and awarded a fine of Rs. 2.1 lakh and one day of imprisonment. In 2014, the activist had borrowed a sum of Rs 2 lakh from one Anil Kumar, a resident of Alappuzha, which was returned through a cheque. However, when he approached the bank with the cheque, it bounced as there was no money in the account.
Kumar had moved to the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate in Alappuzha in 2014 who handed her a day’s imprisonment and ordered her to pay the fine. She then filed an appeal against the verdict before the High Court. However, the High Court upheld the previous verdict as well.
Desecration of Sabarimala temple by Rehana Fathima
The controversial activist, Rehana Fathima had sparked a huge controversy after she had tried to enter the holy Sabarimala shrine and desecrate it following the controversial Supreme court judgement granting permission to women of all ages to enter the temple ignoring the shrines age-old tradition barring women of menstruating age to enter the holy place.
She had also created a controversy after she had called the age-old traditional ban on menstruating age as “unconstitutional”. In 2018, the Pathanamthitta police had registered a case against activist Rehana Fathima against a complaint filed by Sabarimala Achara Samrakshana Samithi for putting up social media posts that were “communally divisive” in nature.
The self-proclaimed activist was also expelled from the Muslim community by the Kerala Muslim Jama’ath Council for “hurting sentiments of lakhs of Hindu devotees”.
A model in the past Fathima has been a part of the ‘Kiss of Love’ campaign in Kochi in 2014 against the purported moral policing. She had also stirred a squabble after she posed topless in a photo with watermelons as a mark of protest against a Kozhikode-based college professor’s remark comparing women’s breasts to watermelons.
She has also acted in a film called “Eka” produced by her partner Manoj K Sreedhar. The film is focused on “intersexuality”. The film features nudity and several bold scenes with Fathima. The film’s poster goes, “I am intersex, I have a p**is and a v***na by birth, I want to live”.
