‘After 28 months and a long fight, I am out’: Journalist Siddique Kappan walks out of UP jail

Speaking to The Indian Express, he said, “I would not say that I was arrested because I am a Muslim. Everyone keeps saying that, but I don’t agree. I say I was arrested because I am a journalist and because I am from Kerala. I am a practising Muslim, but I believe that it was my identity as a journalist from Kerala which was used to target me.”

Senior Jail Superintendent Ashish Tiwari said Kappan was released at 8.30 am. “All paperwork was completed, and then he was released,” he said.

Kappan’s release came more than a month after he was granted bail on December 23 by the Allahabad High Court in a money laundering case filed by the Enforcement Directorate.

Kappan had earlier been granted bail by the Supreme Court on September 9 last year in an Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act case after being booked by the UP Police for alleged links with the radical Popular Front of India – the Centre banned the PFI and its affiliates days later.

Asked about the charges filed against him by police, Kappan said, “I had gone to do reporting there (in Hathras). What is wrong with that?… Nothing was found on me except my laptop and mobile phone. I had two pens and a notebook too.”

Kappan and three others were held in Mathura on October 5, 2020 while heading to Hathras.

Kappan with his wife, son in Lucknow on Thursday. (PTI)

While granting Kappan bail in the UAPA case, the Supreme Court inquired what exactly had been found against him, and also noted “the length of custody undergone”.

Granting him bail in the money laundering case, the High Court noted that “except for allegations that Rs 5,000 was transferred in the bank account of co-accused, Atikur Rahman, there is no other transaction, either in the bank account of the accused-applicant or in the bank account of co-accused”.

It said Kappan was entitled to be released on bail as the “proceeds of crime is less than Rs 1 crore and there is no likelihood” that he would “commit the same offence in future”.

In December, a Lucknow court had framed charges against Kappan and six others in the PMLA case. The other accused were identified as K A Rauf Sherif, Atikur Rahman, Masud Ahmad, Mohammad Alam, Abdul Razzak and Ashraf Khadir.

The police claimed that the accused were members of the banned PFI and its student wing, Campus Front of India (CFI).

Following his release Thursday, Kappan said, “I have lived in Delhi since 2013 and used to cover the Supreme Court, Parliament, Congress and issues related to Dalit and minority communities. I was picked up by police from Mathura and was charged with breach of peace. Those raising allegations against me that I was not a journalist may consider that I was the secretary of the Kerala Union of Working Journalists, and a member of the Press Club of India. Do they say that these are so-called press bodies?”.

“I would like to state that all these allegations levelled against me are false, and all I have done in my professional career since 2009 is journalistic. Nothing more, nothing less,” he said.

On the police claim in the chargesheet that he did not write like a “responsible” journalist and filed reports “to incite Muslims”, he said, “The chargesheet filed against me says that I was a Maoist-sympathiser, and that my writings incited Muslims. I have always written on Dalit, minority and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. It was part of my beat.”

“It came as a shock to me that I was accused of laundering money. Even the Allahabad High Court, while granting me bail, said that only irregular transactions of Rs 5,000 were alleged against me. An ED only has jurisdiction when the proceeds are Rs 1 crore or more. I was framed and kept in jail on charges which are totally baseless and won’t stand in any court,” Kappan said.

“My work as a journalist and my passion for writing and reporting about oppressed communities will not be affected by anything that has happened over the last 28 months. My resolve is intact. This period has been very difficult for my family and me. I have a son, Muzammil, who is 19, and two minor children… One can imagine what life would be for a family when the only earning member is jailed for more than two years,” he said.

“I have been in two jails, under the most serious of charges – under the UAPA, National Security Act and for sedition, among others. For what? Because I was going to Hathras in Uttar Pradesh to do a ground report about the alleged gangrape of a Dalit girl in the district. I have always reported on oppressed communities and when the alleged gangrape happened, it was a story I had to do for the Malayalam news portal I wrote for,” he said.