Saddam village in Kerala in mourning

Saddam Hussein is dead and gone forever. But for the people of a village, now known as Saddam Beach in Kerala, the deposed Iraqi leader has always been revered as a hero.

The people of "Saddam Beach" village near Malappuram staged a protest and shouted anti-US slogans to condemn the execution of Saddam.

"The news came as a shock for the fishing hamlet of about 500 families, though it has been in the air since yesterday evening. The protests that followed were spontaneous," a resident of the village, Kadavath Saidalvi, was quoted by news agency PTI as saying.

The village, originally known as Puthan Kadappuram, came to be called Saddam Beach after some youths put up a signboard bearing their hero's name at a ramshackle bus shelter in the area in 1992, shortly after the Kuwait War.

Overcoming their initial shock, people came out of their homes, put up black flags on the beach and voluntarily lined up to take out a march.

Some of those who had put out to sea quite early in the morning returned to shore when they learnt that Saddam had been sent to the gallows.

The Iraqi leader was regarded as an icon in the hamlet and there are at least 60 boys named Saddam in the area, a local journalist Ahammadunni was quoted by PTI as saing.

Even today, the villagers here don't buy or use American products. Coca-Cola, Pepsi and chocolates are all a strict no no for them.

All this has made the beach village so popular that even the government documents recognise the name now.