Kiss Of love, a Facebook campaign, was held in the national Capital after a lukewarm response to the event in Kochi, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Mumbai. Nearly 300-400 students hugged and kissed each other publicly as a brazen act of defiance.
According to the movement’s Facebook page, the event outside the office of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Jhandewalan was to display “embraces, holds and kisses”.Pankhuri Zazie Zaheer and two Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students Sumitran Basu and Pratik organised the Delhi chapter of the event. Students from DU and Jamia Millia Islamia too joined the drive and locked lips.
The organisers said they selected the venue near the RSS office as the Sangh Parivar had been denying them public spaces to express their affection.At least 1,500 people had confirmed their participation on the campaign’s Facebook page.The movement began when activists from all over Kerala decided to protest against alleged moral policing by Right wing groups by organising a mass snog fest on November 2.The campaign was launched on social media after a coffee shop in north Kerala’s Kozhikode city was vandalised by a group of people who
criticised the public display of affection by some couples there. Delhi was the fourth city where the Kiss Of love protests was organised after the original event called by “free thinkers’ at Marine Drive in Kochi on November 2 was foiled by activists of various fundamentalist outfits.