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Tense moments prevailed at the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium at Kadavanthra in Kochi on Sunday (October 19, 2025) as the police suspended a meeting there for a while following the detection of a gun.
Litmus 2025, a summit of atheists organised by a group called esSENSE Global, was disrupted for around two hours while the police evacuated the stadium and conducted a thorough security check.
The police allowed the organisers to resume the event by 2 p.m. after the security check as they did not find anything suspicious. The man carrying the gun, identified as a native of Udayamperoor in Ernakulam, was taken to the Kadavanthra police station for further investigation. “It has been found that the gun is licenced and no case has been registered over the incident. The man claimed that he was not aware that bringing gun to a crowded place was illegal. The police will be verifying his claims,” a police official with the Kadavanthra station said.
No bomb threat: police
Though initial reports cited a bomb threat as the reason behind the action, the police clarified that there was no such threat.
“The organisers had intimated us after security guards found that a participant was in possession of a gun. All the delegates were evacuated. A comprehensive checking, including examination by the bomb squad, was conducted at the stadium before the programme was allowed to be resumed,” according to the police.
The police intervention came during a debate session with rationalist-writer C. Ravichandran, one of the key organisers of the event, and Sreejith Panicker, a right-leaning political commentator. According to the organisers, over 4,500 delegates were attending the event. Bangladeshi-Swedish writer Taslima Nasrin is scheduled to attend the meet on Sunday evening.
Published – October 19, 2025 05:19 pm IST
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