Jailed journalist shackled to UP hospital bed, says wife
TRIVANDRUM: The wife of Kerala journalist, Sidhique Kappen, arrested on sedition charges by the police in the Indian state of Utar Pradesh last year, is batling for life in a hospital, says his wife.
“He called me yesterday on a phone somebody had given him and spoke for just two minutes.
He said his life is in danger and asked me to do something to save him,” his wife Raihana Siddique said.
“They shited him to a hospital ater he tested positive for the COVID-19.
He said he was shackled to his hospital bed and was not even being allowed to go to the toilet.”
She also wrote a leter to the UP chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, the leader who belongs to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, pleading to save her husband’s life.
Kerala Union of Working Journalists fighting his case in the Supreme Court and some of the lawmakers from the state also pleaded the intervention of India’s newly-appointed chief justice, NV Ramana.
The KUWJ and Raihana also sought the help of Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan but to no avail.
“I went all the way to the state capital to meet him twice but he denied the audience,” Raihana told the Gulf Today on the phone from her village in Malappuram district.
“Later I got a response from his police chief saying he would not interfere in the affairs of another state.”
She met Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi when he arrived in Malappuram last year and he promised to do whatever he can. She has received no word from him since.
She said lawmakers like K Muraleedharan, ET Mohammed Basheer, K Sudhakaran and PK Kunhalikuty were also making all efforts to secure his release.
“He was having high fever for ten days and they shited him to the hospital three-four days back,” she said.
“He told me he had a fall in the hospital and he got hurt. It appears he has fractured his jawbone but he’s not geting proper medical atention or food.”
Kappen was lodged in Mathura Jail as an undertrial prisoner ater being caught by the police on his way to report the death of a girl in Hatra ater being gang-raped.
He was working as a reporter for an online Malayalam portal but the police accused him of being an activist of the Muslim group Popular Front of India (PFI).