After two years, Kerala Journalist Siddique Kappan released on bail

Siddique Kappan, a journalist from Kerala, was granted bail today by the High Court in a case involving money laundering after being detained on terror-related accusations while travelling to UP's Hathras to cover the rape and murder of a Dalit lady two years ago.

He had already been granted bail in the terror case, which was brought under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and other related laws, by the Supreme Court in September, but he continued to be detained in Lucknow because the Enforcement Directorate's related case had not yet yielded any resolution.

He and six other people were charged earlier this month in Lucknow by a court under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), which allowed the trial to start at last. KA Rauf Sherif, Atikur Rahman, Masud Ahmad, Mohammad Alam, Abdul Razzak, and Ashraf Khadir are the other defendants.

These men, according to the authorities, are members of the now-outlawed Popular Front of India and its student arm, Campus Front of India (CFI). They asserted that they were visiting Hathras solely for journalistic purposes and denied any role in financing or participating in terrorist activities.

The UP police detained Mr. Kappan in Mathura along with three of the co-accused, Atikur Rehman, Mohammad Alam, and Masud Ahmad.

Opposition parties and journalist organisations had praised the Supreme Court's decision to grant Mr. Kappan bail in September.

They claimed that because Mr. Kappan is a Muslim, the BJP government in UP has made him a "easy target."

He was travelling to Hathras because a Dalit woman from there had passed away in a hospital in Delhi two weeks after allegedly being the victim of a gang rape on September 14, 2020. She was buried in her hamlet in the middle of the night, which sparked demonstrations and widespread criticism of the BJP leadership.