Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The Kerala High Court Tuesday granted bail to 17 activists/leaders of banned Popular Front of India (PFI) who were chargesheeted under UAPA in the 2022 murder of A Sreenivasan, an RSS leader in Palakkad.
“While arriving at the belief that the accusation against the accused person is prima facie true, the court has to lean in favour of the fundamental rights of the accused and not in favour of the restrictions that can be imposed on those rights,” said a bench of justices A K Jayasankaran Nambiar and Syam Kumar VM.
The bench, however, denied bail to nine of the accused, all PFI men allegedly involved in the murder of Sreenivasan.
Of the 51 accused, only 44 could be arrested so far. A few of the arrested, according to the NIA, had been part of giving arms training for PFI cadres to commit terrorist acts.
Granting bail to 17 accused, the High Court imposed stringent conditions on them. They have been ordered to share their mobile numbers and real-time GPS locations with the investigating officer. Besides that, the accused shall not leave Kerala, shall surrender their passports and keep their mobile phones charged and active round-the-clock, the High Court said.
Sreenivasan was murdered on April 16, 2022, a day after the murder of a PFI worker, A Subair. The RSS worker’s murder was one of the cases that led to the ban of PFI by the Centre in September 2022.
Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram
