Lucknow: The Allahabad High Court rejected the bail plea of Siddique Kappan, a Keralite journalist who was imprisoned by the UP police in connection with the Hathras case in which the police accused him of conspiracy.
On October 5, 2020, Siddique Kappan was arrested by the UP Police when he was going to report a case of gang-rape of a Dalit girl in Hathras. The initial arrest of Kappan and the other accused who were travelling with him in a car, was under the apprehension of causing a breach of peace and were produced before a court of the sub-divisional magistrate which sent them to judicial custody.
Subsequently, they were booked under the stringent UAPA alleging that he and his co-passengers were trying to incite communal riots and disrupt social harmony in the wake of the Hathras gangrape-murder case.
Kappan's initial bail plea before a local court in Mathura was rejected in July last year. Then he moved the Allahabad High Court.
A bench comprising Justice Krishna Pahal denied him bail. The hearing on the petition was completed on Wednesay and the verdict was posted for today.
Senior advocates I.B. Singh and Ishan Baghel appeared in the court. Following the denial of bail by the High Court, Kappan is reportedly planning to approach the Supreme Court.
The police charged him with offences under UAPA, and he has been in jail for 22 months. The UP police had also charged him with sedition, criminal conspiracy and financing of terrorist activities.