The Supreme Court on September 9, 2022, granted bail to Kerala “journalist” Siddique Kappan who is accused of planning to incite riots over the Hathras case. Kappan was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh government last year. The apex court passed the order while allowing the appeal filed by Kappan against the Allahabad High Court’s order denying him bail. While delivering the judgment, the bench comprising Chief Justice of India U.U. Lalit and Justice S. Ravindra Bhat observed:
We have been taken through some documents on record. At this stage, we refrain from dealing with and commenting on the progress of the investigation and the materials collected by the prosecution as the matter is at the framing of charge.
The court has further asked Kappan to not leave Delhi for the next 6 weeks and has allowed him to go back to Kerala after that on conditions like he shall mark his presence with the local police station every week, along with some other conditions.
Senior Advocate Mahesh Jethmalani appearing for the State of Uttar Pradesh said that provocative literature found was found which was “toolkit” to incite riots. Advocate Jethmalani also said that Kappan has links with the Islamist organization Popular Front of India (PFI). As per the statement of Jethmalani:
Kappan was in the meeting of PFI in Sep 2020. It was said in the meeting that funding had stopped. It was decided in the meeting that they will go to sensitive areas and incite riots. On October 5, they decided to go to Hathras to incite riots. He was funded with Rs 45,000 to create riots. He claimed to be accredited to a newspaper. But we have found that he was accredited to the official organization of PFI. PFI has to be notified as a terrorist group. One State, Jharkhand, has notified it is a terrorist group. He was there to incite riots. It’s a little bit like what happened in Bombay in 1990.
The CJI replied to the allegations of the toolkit that every person has a right to freedom of expression and asked Jethmalani whether this was a crime in eyes of the law.
Kappan was arrested in April 2021 by the Uttar Pradesh government while on his way to Hathras. The Special Task Force (STF) of Uttar Pradesh had filed a 5,000-page charge sheet in Mathura court against Kappan and seven members of PFI for trying to incite communal riots in UP. Kappan and the PFI cadres were accused of receiving international funds to incite caste riots in Uttar Pradesh using the October 2020 case of the gangrape and murder of a scheduled caste girl in Hathras. Siddique was charged under sections 17/18 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), Sections 120B 153A/295A IPC, and 65/72 IT Act.
Uttar Pradesh government filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court in which details were provided about Kappan’s links with the PFI. The affidavit said that the investigation revealed that Kappan has personal links to the top leadership of PFI and its student wing Campus Front of India (CFI). The affidavit further mentions the connection between CFI and the Islamic terrorist outfit Al Qaeda. The affidavit said:
The anti-national and terrorist PFI conspiracy and agenda dates back to 2010 (when PFI cadres (ex SIMI) had brutally maimed (hacked off the hands) Christian Lecturer TJ Thomas of Newman College, and in 2013 when PFI backed weapons training terrorist camp was raided by the Kerala police at Narath, an investigation which was later taken over by the NIA.
The affidavit further said:
High Court has meticulously considered the charge sheet, case diaries, and evidence against the Petitioner before finding a prima facie case is made out and only then rightly refused bail.
In July 2022, in the charge sheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court, it was informed that the PFI member named KA Rauf Sherif who was linked in the Hathras conspiracy case was obtaining funds for terror activities from China.
