COIMBATORE: Just three days after the Madras High Court gave him bail in a UAPA (Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act) case, a Muslim prisoner has been arrested again by the Race Course police of Coimbatore city on Friday under UAPA again on the charge of possessing drawings of ISIS flag in his prison cell on November 27.
M Asif Mustaheen (30) of Manickampalayam in Erode district was kept in the Coimbatore central prison even after the HC bail order on December 12 ostensibly for completion of paperwork. According to a complaint lodged by S Sivarajan, jailor of Coimbatore prison, with the Race Course police on December 13, the officer and other staff spotted the “incriminating material” in the cell of Mustaheen during a surprise check conducted at the prison cell of the convict on November 27.
Mustaheen has been imprisoned in the high-security block of the Coimbatore prison since July 27, 2022, on the charge of allegedly conspiring to kill members of Hindu organisations. The new FIR registered by the Race Course police said Asif resisted the jail officials’ attempts to enter his cell and check his belongings. After overpowering him, officials frisked him and found a drawing of the ISIS flag in his pocket. He had used a piece of paper given to him to write petitions to draw the flag, police said.
BJP MLA Vanathi Srinivasan in a post on X (formerly Twitter) recalled previous terrorist acts in the city and demanded an NIA investigation into the incident. Sources in the prison department told TNIE that Asif had allegedly threatened warders that he would destroy the prison complex once he gets out of the prison on bail.
A division bench of Justices SS Sundar and Sunder Mohan of the Madras High Court in their order granting bail to Musthaheen on December 12 questioned whether killing of Hindu religious leaders by itself would constitute a terrorist act under UAPA and said it’s debatable.