STF chargesheet against Siddique Kappan: A dictate for journalists
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New Delhi: The chargesheet prepared by the UP Special Task Force against Delhi based Kerala journalist Siddique Kappan is reported to have included a dictate on how journalists should work in India. In the 5,000-page chargesheet, the STF has reportedly taken strong objection to Kappan's lenience towards Muslim causes and sympathising with Maoists and Communists through his articles.
A report published in The Indian Express said that the STF has brought to the charge-sheet portions from 36 articles written by Kappan for a Malayalam media house to establish that his writings were aimed at inciting Muslim sentiments.
There is the mention in the chargesheet of the articles he has written on the Nizamuddin Markaz gathering after the Covid outbreak, anti-CAA protests, Northeast Delhi riots, the Ram temple in Ayodhya and the chargesheet against Sharjeel Imam who was jailed on sedition charges.
Referring to one of the articles written during the CAA protests in Aligarh Muslim University, the chargesheet says that Kappan portrayed Muslims as the victims and who were subjected to manhandling by the police and were asked to go to Pakistan with the intention to incite Muslim sentiments.
It further said that his writings to the extent of inciting Muslims during the riot situation can be classified as communal, which can be assumed as the hidden agenda of PFI (Popular Front of India). The reporting in the communal line could not be expected from a responsible journalist, the chargesheet said.
The chargesheet was filed in April this year, months after Kappan, PFI members Atikur Rahman and Masud Ahmad, and their driver Alam, were arrested in Mathura on October 5 last year while on their way to Hathras. They were booked under UAPA and on charges of sedition.
Calling Kappan as the think tank of the PFI, the chargesheet added that the PFI's intention was to flare up the unrest in the disguise of protest demanding justice for the Hathras victim.
Meanwhile, Wills Mathews, Kappan's lawyer, called the STF's chargesheet is biased, citing that even one year after the submission of this chargesheet, the authorised copies of it has not been provided to him and the lawyers of other accused in the case.