Journalist Siddique Kappan is likely to be released this week more than a month after he got bail in a money laundering case.
His lawyer Danish KS told Scroll.in on Monday that two sureties required for his release have been verified by a Lucknow court and the sureties have been asked to appear on Tuesday. The release order is expected to be issued on Tuesday evening, the lawyer said.
Kappan was arrested on October 5, 2020, along with three other men while they were travelling to Hathras, where a Dalit woman was gangraped and killed by four upper-caste Thakur men on September 14, 2020.
The police first accused Kappan of intending to start a caste-based riot and create communal disharmony. Subsequently, sedition charges and provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act were added.
In February 2021, the Enforcement Directorate filed a case against him under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The central agency had claimed that Kappan and three others had received money from the now-banned Popular Front of India to “incite riots”.
On September 9, the Supreme Court had granted bail to Kappan in the UAPA case, while on December 23, the Allahabad High Court gave him bail in the money laundering case too. However, for more than a month since then, Kappan continues to be in jail due to bureaucratic delays.
On January 5, Mohammed Alam, one of the co-accused in the UAPA case, was released from jail. Alam was driving the taxi that Kappan and two others were travelling in on their way to Hathras in October 2020.
Also read: Why journalist Siddique Kappan and his co-accused are languishing in jail – despite getting bail
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