Arnab Goswami, the Editor of Republic TV was released last week from Taloja Jail, in Maharashtra barely a week after he was arrested allegedly in a serious case of abetment to suicide of Anvay Naik, the architect who designed his Republic TV studio in Mumbai. Anvay Naik committed suicide in 2018 and blamed Arnab and two others for his extreme step in ending his life.
There are scores of journalists who were arrested lately and are languishing in prisons across India like Siddique Kappan, a Delhi-based scribe working for a Malayalam portal Azhimukham.com. Kappan was arrested on October 5 along with three others while he was on his way to Hathras to report the alleged gang-rape and murder of a 19 year Dalit woman. He and his colleagues were booked under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) by the UP Police. Kappan’s arrest did not evoke any hue and cry as it did in Arnab Goswami’s case.
Kappan’s family is worried as they were not allowed to meet him in Mathura Jail where he is kept currently. This is a big contrast to the access Arnab Goswamy’s family and lawyers had to him during his sojourn in jail.
While Arnab Goswamy was able to approach the lower court, the High Court and finally the Supreme Court all within a week’s time and got the interim bail, Siddique Kappan was not that lucky. Even more than a month since his arrest, his bail plea has not been heard by the Mathura Court. It’s more than 15 days that the Journalist Union filed an application in the Supreme Court seeking to hear Kappan’s bail application immediately. The SC is likely to hear his case today.
When the lawyers representing Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) filed a habeas corpus petition on October 6 after Siddique Kappan’s arrest, the SC had referred the case to the Allahabad High Court and asked the petitioners to amend the petition. Kappan’s lawyers say, “they could not amend the petition as the Mathura Court rejected their request to meet the incarcerated Journalist.”
The lawyers were denied permission by the Mathura Court to meet Kappan on October 16. “The Mathura Court first asked us to go to jail and meet Kappan there. But the jail authorities insisted on CMJ’s order. When we went back to the Court, they made us wait and our application was rejected late in the evening,” says Wills Mathews, KUWJ lawyer.
No opportunity for video-conferencing was allowed and the request for e-Mulakat under the E-prisons system was also rejected. His family members are totally dependent on him to meet their household expenses as he is the only earning member in their family, the petition filed by KUWJ stated.
Rahyanath, Kappan’s wife wonders why her husband’s arrest did not stir up the kind of uproar which has been witnessed in the arrest of Arnab Goswami. Some ministers in Arnab’s case went to the extent of comparing his arrest with the Emergency but they remained tight-lipped about her husband’s arrest. Why such double standards? “The same ministers were silent on my pleas and letters demanding Kappan’s release,” Rehyanath says.
The UP police have levelled conspiracy and terror charges against Kappan. Kappan’s wife, colleagues, and friends vouch for his innocence. “He was going to report an incident, which was of national importance. In our application also, we have invoked the case of press freedom and his case deserves the presumption of innocence,” says Wills Mathews.
Former secretary of KUWJ, P.K. Manikantah, says that the Uttar Pradesh Police and the government have failed to ensure justice to his colleague. We have only heard the police version till now. No one knows Kappan’s side of the story. “Police say that he belongs to the Popular Front of India (PFI). But his family, friends, and people who know him swear that he is not a member of PFI, he is a journalist,” says Manikantan.
Hope the Supreme Court will ensure no travesty of justice in curtailing personal liberty of Siddique Kappan when it looks into his case today and orders his immediate release on bail along the lines of what it did in Arnab Goswami’s case.
Md. Hussain Ahmed is an editor of www.akhbarulhind.com specialized in Indo Arab relations and writes articles for English and Urdu Newspapers.