Feb 2,2023: Siddique Kappan, a Muslim journalist from Kerala, leaves jail more than 851 days after being detained by the Uttar Pradesh Police while en route to the Hathras residence of a young Dalit woman who had allegedly been murdered and gang-raped by upper-caste Hindu men.
“I will continue my fight against draconian laws. They kept me in jail even after I got bail… 28 months after a long fight. I don’t know who’s benefiting from my being in jail. These two years were very tough, but I was never afraid,” he told media after his release from the Lucknow jail.
A money laundering case brought by the Enforcement Directorate resulted in Kappan being granted bail on December 24, 2022 by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court. In September of last year, bail was granted in the UAPA case.
He was arrested in October 2020 as he travelled to Hathras in Uttar Pradesh to report on the alleged gang rape and death of a 20-year-old Dalit woman, which sparked nationwide demonstrations. He intended to stir up trouble, according to the police.
Kappan was charged under the strict anti-terror law UAPA on the basis of a sedition charge. The Enforcement Directorate filed a money laundering case against him in February 2022, alleging that he had received funds from the banned People’s Front of India.
The Supreme Court granted him bail in September of last year after noting that no official charges had been brought against him and that a document found by the state police under the name “Toolkit” solely called for justice in the rape case.
Three months later, he was granted bail in the charge of money laundering. But a number of inefficiencies in the bureaucracy prevented his release.
Kappan’s release from the jail was welcomed by several journalists and activists.
Senior editor of the Wire, Arfa Khanum Sherwani, took to Twitter and said, “He was imprisoned for a crime he never committed.
His only crime was that we was a journalist and a Muslim.”
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