* No untoward incidents have so far been reported from anywhere in the state in connection with the harthal. The state DGP has given strict orders for action if anybody tries to indulge in violence.* The Taxi Tempo Owners Association has arranged parallel emergency service to people who reach in Trivandrum centre for visiting Regional Cancer Centre, medical College etc.* Private vehicles moving as usual in major city roads in Thiruvananthapuram.* Public transport remained off the road in most part of the state, while private vehicles abound on all major roads.* The hartal has evoked mixed response in the first few hours.* Defying hartal call, fans queueing up in hundreds of theatres across state to see first show of Mohanlal-starrer Odiyan.* Filmmaker V A Shrikumar Menon said the crew of his latest movie, Mohanlal-starrer Odiyan, apprised the BJP leadership of the technical difficulties in postponing its release slated for Friday.* Sabarimala pilgrims, their vehicles and all India exams have been exempted from the hartal. Kerala and MG universities postponed all examinations scheduled for Friday.* A BJP release claimed that Nair took the extreme step due to the "adamant" stand of the Pinarayi Vijayan-led government on the Sabarimala issue.* BJP has been on an indefinite hunger strike since December 3, protesting against the government’s ill-treatment of BJP leader K Surendran who was arrested and recently released on bail, and for the revocation of CrPC Section 144 at Sabarimala.* Devaswom minister Kadakampally Surendran on Thursday night lashed out at the BJP's call for strike and said the saffron party was trying to provoke the police. "Tomorrow's strike is the result of desperation faced by the BJP due to failure of its plan to create 'balidanis' (martyrs) by provoking the police at Sabarimala and other places."* Devaswom minister Kadakampally Surendran sought a probe into the incident.* Ramesh said Nair’s act showed how Ayyappa devotees were reacting emotionally to government’s stringent norms at Sabarimala. “Sabarimala issue is triggering an emotional movement. He was an Ayyappa devotee. He was saying that his move was his protest against the injustice meted out to the temple and he was chanting Ayyappa mantras,” the BJP leader said.* BJP general secretary M T Ramesh had told reporters that the intervention of party activists prevented the man from entering the protest venue, and setting it on fire.* “The judicial first-class magistrate-II had recorded the statement of Venugopalan Nair. He gave a death statement that he was killing himself as he had no desire to live anymore. He also said he had run towards the protest venue in a frenzy,” city police commissioner P Prakash in a statement.* Soon after his death, the BJP called for the shutdown—its fourth since the Supreme Court’s Sabarimala verdict—“in respect of the Ayyappa devotee”. Police, however, termed Nair’s a suicide and added that he had no links with with the BJP’s ongoing protest.* BJP workers and policemen present at the scene doused the fire and shifted him to the medical college hospital. He died around 3.30pm in the hospital’s burns ICU, after a magistrate had recorded his dying declaration, police said.* Muttada resident Venugopalan Nair doused himself with kerosene in front of the BJP’s protest venue around 1.30am on Thursday, and set him ablaze. He rushed towards the venue where BJP leader C K Padmanabhan has been on an indefinite hunger strike demanding the withdrawal of prohibitory orders at Sabarimala.* The BJP has called for a dawn-to-dusk state-wide hartal on Friday after a 49-year-old man died of burns suffered after he had set himself ablaze in front of the secretariat.

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