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Siddiqui Kappan has been in jail since October final yr. (File)
Lucknow:
A 5,000-page chargesheet by Uttar Pradesh Police in opposition to journalist Siddiqui Kappan, jailed final yr when he was headed to report the Hathras gangrape case that triggered nationwide shock, has accused him of “making an attempt to additional the phobia agenda” of the banned outfit SIMI (Scholar’s Islamic Motion of India), in accordance to some pages reviewed by NDTV.
The chargesheet – filed in April by the UP Police’s Particular Job Pressure and offered earlier than a Mathura courtroom – has nonetheless not been made accessible to Mr Kappan or his authorized representatives, his attorneys have claimed. They’ve petitioned the trial courtroom, in search of “true copies of the doc to the accused”.
Thirty-six articles written by Mr Kappan – accused of getting hyperlinks to the Widespread Entrance of India or PFI, an outfit the Yogi Adityanath authorities needs banned – have been cited within the chargesheet.
One of many articles is on the protests in opposition to the controversial citizenship legislation that began in December 2019 throughout the nation and continued until the pandemic started. “The article talks in regards to the firing by a Hindu man Kapil Gurjar in the course of the Shaheen Bagh Protests and compares this incident to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. The article additionally criticizes that method the Delhi police dealt with the protests,” the chargesheet reads.
One other article cited is on Sharjeel Imam, an activist dealing with a terror case over his alleged function within the northeast Delhi riots final yr, saying it promotes emotions of communalism.
“Throughout a riot, if you take the identify of solely a specific neighborhood and publish incidents associated to that neighborhood, members of that neighborhood get enraged. Accountable reporters don’t take pleasure in such communal reporting, however Siddiqui Kappan’s journalism was solely meant to incite Muslims and to additional the agenda of the PFI that wishes to impress riots and communal emotions,” it reads.
The chargesheet additionally cites one other article on the controversy over the alleged function of the Nizamuddin Markaz in spreading the pandemic, saying “it has been offered as a ploy by the central authorities to defame the Muslim neighborhood.”
The chargesheet calls the articles “a collaboration with members of SIMI and an try and legitimize the banned outfit’s agenda”.
Nonetheless, Wills Mathews , Mr Kappan’s lawyer, known as it one-sided and highlighted how Mr Kappan, the opposite accused and their authorized counsels haven’t been supplied with authorised copies of this chargesheet even a yr after the journalist’s arrest.
“Mr Kappan has nothing to cover. He even volunteered to bear Narco evaluation or mind mapping exams to show his innocence. Even after a full yr of Kappan’s arrest and 6 months after the chargesheet was filed in courtroom, we’ve nonetheless not obtained it,” Mr Mathews mentioned in an announcement.
Mr Kappan and three others have been in jail after their arrest in October final yr, once they have been headed from Delhi to western Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras, the place a younger Dalit girl was gang-raped in September by 4 males from a so-called higher caste neighborhood , finally resulting in her demise.
Mr Kappan and the others have been charged beneath the stringent anti-terror legislation and different sections of the Indian Penal Code. All of them say they’ve been framed by the police.
In August, a Mathura courtroom dismissed the UP Police’s plea to interrogate Kappan once more about some incriminating doc discovered at his Delhi residence.
Further District and Classes Decide Anil Kumar Pandey rejected the Particular Job Pressure plea, saying that the accused can’t be allowed to be interrogated once more after the chargesheet within the case has already been filed, information company PTI reported.
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