Hathras case: Kerala journalist Siddique Kappan was arrested in October last year
Lucknow:
Uttar Pradesh police filed a 5,000-page charge sheet against Kerala journalist Siddique Kappan, who was arrested in October last year while traveling from Delhi to report the consequences of the alleged gang rape and subsequent death in a hospital. from Delhi of a Dalit Woman from UP’s Hathras.
Seven others, three of whom were arrested with Mr. Kappan, and the others later arrested, also face charges under the strict Illegal Activity (Prevention) Act or UAPA for alleged conspiracy to create community tension.
Mr. Kappan and three others were on their way to Hathras to report the alleged gang rape of the woman, who later died in hospital when they were arrested and charged under the anti-terrorism law. UP Police said they acted on a tip about “suspicious people.”
In the FIR (First Informative Report), the police used a section of the UAPA that deals with “raising funds for a terrorist act.” Since then, Mr. Kappan has been in Mathura Jail.
“We have not received a copy of the charge sheet yet. It is about 5,000 pages long. Once we get a copy officially, we will study it and decide our course of action,” defense attorney Madhuvan Dutt Chaturvedi told reporters outside court in Mathura.
The UP administration’s handling of the Hathras case was widely criticized. The police were accused of delaying responding to the woman’s complaint. After he died in hospital from his injuries, the police also controversially took his body away, drove to his village and cremated him at 2 am in the absence of his family.
The state administration’s treatment of journalists and leaders who tried to visit Hathras was similarly criticized.
The Central Bureau of Investigation later took over the case and filed a charge sheet against four defendants. That trial is taking place in a court in Hathras.
In December last year, the UP government told the Supreme Court that Kappan claimed that he worked as a journalist for a Kerala-based daily, but that the newspaper closed two years ago.
The UP government has filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court alleging that Kappan would go to Hathras under “journalism garb” with a “very determined design” to create a caste division and disrupt the situation of law and order. .
The Kerala Trade Union of Worker Journalists (KUWJ) has asked the Supreme Court for an independent investigation by a retired judge to determine the facts of the alleged “illegal arrest and detention” of Mr. Kappan. The KUWJ claimed that the Uttar Pradesh police made an “absolutely false and incorrect statement” that Mr. Kappan is the secretary of the Popular Front of India (PFI) office.
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