On Friday, March 3, Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) arrested a member of the now-banned Islamist outfit Popular Front of India (PFI) from Melattur in the Malappuram district of Kerala.
According to the police, the PFI member Kamal KP attempted to stir up unrest and incite protests in Hathras in 2020 after the death of a 19-year-old Dalit woman there. The UP STF had announced a reward of Rs 25,000 for information leading to Kamal KP’s arrest.
Detailing Kamal KP’s suspected role, Additional Director General, Law and Order, Prashant Kumar said that a voice note was received from ‘journalist’ Siddique Kappan’s mobile phone during the investigation of STF. The said voice note was sent to Kamal KP in which code word was used for calling a secret meeting. In this meeting, a conspiracy was hatched to instigate riots in Hathras.
ADG Prashant Kumar also added that Kamal KP was a member of the PFI’s ‘hit squad’ and a mentor of one Anshad Badruddin who along with his aide Firoz Khan was apprehended with improvised explosive devices (IED) in Lucknow in 2021. Kamal KP was also among the top five members of the PFI.
Notably, both Badruddin and Firoz Khan were natives of Kerala who arrived in Uttar Pradesh to execute multiple bomb blasts in Lucknow and other parts of UP.
ADG Kumar informed that Kamal KP will soon be presented before the court in Lucknow and police will take him on remand for further investigation.
Earlier on Thursday, March 2, an SC-ST court in Uttar Pradesh acquitted three people accused in the Hathras case and held only one guilty. Out of the four accused, namely, Sandeep Sisodia (20), Ravi (35), Luv Kush (23), and Ramu (26), the court held that Sandeep was guilty of the crime and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
Notably, in April 2021, the UP police submitted a 5000-page charge sheet against Kerala-based ‘journalist’ Siddique Kappan and seven others for conspiring to create communal tension in Hathras. The UP Police arrested him on October 5, 2020 while he was proceeding to cover the Hathras case. Kappan however, was in February this year released from jail after Lucknow Sessions Court approved bail orders. Kappan, detained in October 2020 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), was released from the Lucknow jail cell on February 2 after serving more than two years behind bars.
The charge sheet was filed before the Additional District Judge’s Court in Mathura. Besides Siddique Kappan, radical Islamist outfit PFI members Masood Ahmed, Rauf Sharif, Anshad Badruddin, Atiqur Rahman, and Firoz Khan were also booked by the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF).