Uttar Pradesh police detained a journalist and three other men allegedly linked to the Popular Front of India on Monday night as they headed to the Hathras district, where the gang and brutal assault of a Dalit woman has sparked outrage across the country, NDTV reported.
This came hours after Prime Minister Adityanath denounced that political opponents of the Bharatiya Janata Party were trying to conspire against him “trying to lay the groundwork for caste and communal riots through international funding.” State police have also filed 19 first intelligence reports in Hathras against unidentified individuals for allegedly trying to incite caste conflict after the woman’s death last week.
The four men – Atiq-ur Rehman, Siddique Kappan, Masood Ahmed and Alam – they were stopped by the state police at a tollbooth after they received information that some “suspicious persons” were traveling from Delhi. In an official statement, the police said their mobile phones, a laptop and some literature were seized, which could affect the public order situation.
Siddique Kappan, journalist and secretary of the Delhi unit of the Kerala Trade Union of Journalists at Work, was on his way to report on the current situation in the women’s village.
The Kerala Union of Worker Journalists has urged Adityanath to release Kappan immediately. “We understand that he was detained by the Uttar Pradesh police from the Hathras toll plaza,” the journalists’ body said in a statement. “Our efforts and the efforts of some Delhi-based advocates to contact him were unsuccessful. The Hathras Police Station and the State Police Department have so far not provided any information about his arrest. “
Kappan had previously sent legal notice to people who had linked him to the Popular Front of India or PFI, according to NDTV. The Adityanath-led state government has blamed the organization for protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act that broke out last year and the subsequent vandalism.
The rape case
On September 14, four upper-caste Thakur men had tortured and raped the Dalit woman. She died on September 29, a day after being transferred to Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi. She had suffered multiple fractures and other serious injuries and was paralyzed. All four men have been arrested. However, the woman was hastily cremated by the police against the will of her family, while they were locked up. This has sparked outrage and protests across the country.
The Uttar Pradesh administration has consistently denied that the woman was raped, based on a forensic laboratory report that there were no traces of sperm in the samples taken from her. However, the medical director of the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, where the woman was admitted, said that the forensic laboratory report “has no value” as it was based on samples taken 11 days after the crime was committed. Experts have also noted that since the samples for the test were collected many days after the crime was committed, there would be no sperm present. The woman’s autopsy report showed that she was strangled and suffered a cervical spine injury. The final diagnosis did not mention rape, but had indicated that she had tears in her genitals and had been “use of force”.
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