LUCKNOW: Charges have been framed against journalist Siddique Kappan and six others under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) by a Lucknow court on Wednesday, paving way for the trial to proceed in the case. The court has fixed December 17 as the next date of the hearing.
Besides Kappan, the other accused include KA Rauf Sherif, Atikur Rahman, Masud Ahmad, Mohammad Alam, Abdul Razzak and Ashraf Khadir. The Enforcement Directorate filed the prosecution complaint against all the accused in February last year.
According to UP police, Kappan and the other accused are members of the banned organisation Popular Front of India (PFFI) and its student wing — Campus Front of India (CFI). It may be recalled that Kappan was arrested by the UP Police in October 2020 while he was on his way to Hathras along with three of his aides including Rahman, Ahmed and their car driver Alam, to cover the alleged gangrape and murder of a minor girl belonging to Scheduled Caste.
The police had charged the scribe and his aides under the anti-terror law, Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). The other three accused including Sharief, Razzakh and Khadir were arrested during the investigation.
The state police had also claimed that Kappan was moving to Hathras with the intent to disrupt peace in the area as part of a conspiracy. However, Kappan’s lawyers had claimed that he was going to report on the case involving a woman. After arresting the Kerala-based journalist, UP police also seized his smartphones and laptops.
After getting his bail plea rejected by the courts in UP, Kappan moved Supreme Court of India which, on September 9, granted him bail in the UAPA case. However, Kappan was not released because of the Money Laundering case being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against him. In October, a local Lucknow court rejected Kappan’s bail in a Money laundering case.