The four people arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police on October 5 from Mathura for suspected links with the radical group the People’s Front of India (PFI) were today sent to 14-day judicial custody by a local court.
Charges under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the IT Act have also been filed against the four accused.
The four persons were arrested on their way to Hathras, where a 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly gangraped and killed last month.
The family of the victim has alleged that she was gangraped and fatally assaulted by four persons of the same village. The woman died in a Delhi hospital after battling for life for two weeks.
The persons arrested from Mathura were heading to Hathras on Monday.
The Uttar Pradesh police have said some elements are trying to “disrupt law and order situation” in Hathras and the state over the issue of alleged gangrape and murder.
The police said the four persons arrested from Mathura intended to disrupt peace in the state. The arrested persons include a Kerala-based journalist Siddique Kappan. The police have registered an FIR in this connection.
The FIR claimed that police recovered pamphlets “Justice for Hathras victim”, six mobiles and a laptop from them, and during the initial probe it was found that they were going to Hathras with an intention “to breach the peace” as part of a “conspiracy”.
The FIR also says that the four persons arrested on October 5 had “link with PFI” and “were going to Hathras to disrupt peace as part of a larger conspiracy”. The PFI’s name had cropped up during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). It was accused of funding the anti-CAA protests. The Uttar Pradesh police had back then sought a ban on the outfit.
The four persons arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police were identified as Siddique Kappan of Malappuram (Kerala), Atiq-ur Rehman of Muzaffarnagar, Masood Ahmed of Bahraich and Alam of Rampur (all from Uttar Pradesh). In a statement, the Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) said Siddiqui is a journalist from the state.
The four persons had been arrested at a toll plaza on the Yamuna Expressway. They were travelling in a car when the police arrested them. The police said they also have links with another organisation called the Campus Front of India (CFI), which is a students’ wing of the PFI.
They were on Wednesday booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) including 124A (sedition) and 153A (Promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony), according to the FIR.
They have also been charged with IPC Section 295A (Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious belief).