Jailed journalist allowed to meet ailing mother

TRIVANDRUM: Supreme Court on Monday granted jailed journalist Siddique Kappan bail for five days to visit his 90-year-old ailing mother in Kerala.

Issuing the order on a plea by the Kerala Union of Working Journalists ( KUWJ), Chief Justice SA Bobde-led bench of the apex court, however, barred him from interacting with the public.

The police in Utar Pradesh arrested the freelance journalist on sedition charges four months back while going to report a gangrape case in the northern state that triggered widespread outrage.

The Enforcement Directorate (EC) investigating financial crimes later charged him with money laundering for the alleged extremist outfit Popular Front of India (PFI).

The police had also arrested three leaders of the Campus Front of India, a PFI feeder oufit, and their driver, along with him on their way to Hathras.

The KUWJ has since denied that the Delhibased journalist contributing to Malayalam news portals, currently jailed in Mathura, had anything to do with the PFI.

They face charges of attempting to disturb communal harmony, incite violence and spread terror ater the gangrape of a Dalit girl by upper-caste men.

The ED also alleges conspiracy “to fraudulently transfer the money raised/collected abroad by

PFI in the guise of payments related to business transactions” of Rs 13.6 million.

The court order says Kapil Sibal, the senior lawyer, a former federal minister and Congress party leader, had agreed to its bail conditions.

The main condition is that he shall not meet the members of the public or give interviews, including on social media.

He can only meet his “relatives and doctors and anybody else in connection with his mother’s health.” The court also asked the Kerala police to cooperate with them in the mater while the responsibility of his travel rests with their UP counterparts.

The police may guard the house from outside but shall not go inside when he visits his mother.

Sibal told the court that Kappan’s mother is in a critical condition and is not likely to survive for long. Tushar Mehta, the solicitor general of India, “expressed a grave apprehension” that the prisoner is likely to use the opportunity to “gather support for his activities.”

“We are of the view that the interest of justice would be served if appropriate safeguards are built into the order,” the judges wrote.

Sibal told the court that a video call was arranged with his mother but she could not respond or even look at the mobile screen as she is very critical and in hospital.