Kerala journalist Siddique Kappan who was arrested while on his way to cover the gang rape and murder of a Dalit woman in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras town on October 5, 2020, walked out of Lucknow jail after two years, today.
He was arrested from Mathura toll plaza along with three others. He was also booked under various Sections of the Indian Penal Code, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act (UAPA) and the Information Technology Act apart from the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) by the law enforcement agencies.
A special court in Lucknow signed his release order more than five weeks after he got bail in the PMLA case lodged by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). “Sessions court has signed release orders of Siddique Kappan. He will be released from prison on Thursday morning,” said Kappan’s lawyer Ishan Baghel, on Wednesday. In the release order, district and sessions judge Sanjay Shanker Pandey directed the Lucknow prison superintendent to release Kappan if he is not wanted in any other case.
Kappan was arrested in October 2020 under the PMLA lodged by the ED. The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court granted him bail on December 23, 2022. A single bench of justice DK Singh granted bail to Kappan, citing that the ED’s investigation lacked ascribing any specific role to Kappan in the case relating to an illicit transaction of money to the tune of ₹1.36 crore, allegedly collected by now banned Popular Front of India (PFI) to spread terror in the country.
The Supreme Court also on September 9, 2022, granted bail to Kappan in the UAPA case stating that “every citizen has the right to free expression”. However, he continued to remain in prison due to the pending cases against him.
During the course of his jail term, Kappan lost his mother and also fell ill with Covid for which he was allowed treatment at AIIMS after a significant struggle by his lawyers and his wife.
‘I am happy to be out now’, he told the reporters after the release. ‘I have come out of jail after 28 months. I want to thank the Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ), the public including senior journalists and activists for supporting me’, he added.
Kappan who hails from Malappuram in Kerala, worked as a reporter for the Malayalam news portal Azhimukham and held the post of secretary in the Delhi unit of KUWJ.