Mathura: Eight individuals linked to Popular Front of India, including its college students’ wing chief Okay A Rauf Sherif and Kerala journalist Siddique Kappan, have been charge-sheeted on Saturday by Uttar Pradesh police’s Special Task Force in a courtroom right here for sedition, prison conspiracy, funding of terror actions and other offences.
Five of the accused — Campus Front of India’s (CFI) nationwide basic secretary Sherif, CFI nationwide treasurer Atikur Rahman, Delhi CFI basic secretary Masud Ahmed, Kappan and Mohammed Alam, who’s a member of the CFI and the PFI, have been current within the courtroom of Additional District and Sessions Judge Anil Kumar Pandey.
Two other accused– Anshad Badruddin and Firoz Khan — attended the listening to by means of video conferencing.
“The STF has also filed a charge sheet against accused Danish,” district authorities counsel Shiv Ram Singh stated.
Defence counsel Madhuban Dutt stated that the 5000-page charge-sheet has been filed against the eight accused and they’re going to take into account shifting the excessive courtroom after going by means of it.
The accused have been charge-sheeted beneath Indian Penal Code sections of 153 (A) (Promoting enmity between totally different teams on floor of faith, race, hometown, residence, language), 124(A) (sedition), 295 (A) (deliberate and malicious acts, supposed to outrage spiritual emotions…) and 120(B) (prison conspiracy), in response to the defence counsel.
They have additionally been charged with sections 17 and 18 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) associated to elevating funds for terror acts and varied sections of the IT Act.
The courtroom has mounted the subsequent listening to for May 1.
Kappan together with Rahman, Masud Ahmed and Alam was arrested in October final 12 months whereas they have been heading to Hathras the place a 19-year previous Dalit lady had allegedly been gang-raped and murdered.
The FIR against them claimed that they have been going to Hathras with an intention “to breach the peace” as a part of a “conspiracy”.
The Enforcement Directorate had in February filed its first charge-sheet against the PFI members on cash laundering prices, claiming they wished to “incite communal riots and spread terror” within the aftermath of the Hathras gang rape case.
The district counsel stated that Anshad Badruddin and Firoz Khan are lodged in Lucknow jail after being arrested for allegedly plotting to execute a collection of blasts in Lucknow and elsewhere in Uttar Pradesh.
The defence counsel claimed that the accused have been falsely implicated within the case.
He alleged that the accused who have been lodged in Mathura jail have been denied meals for 24 hours.
“They were not served any food after 5.00 PM on Friday till 4.30 PM of Saturday while they were in the court,” he claimed, including that Kappan has diabetes and Rahman is a coronary heart affected person.
As they have been being taken out of the courtroom, a few of the accused shouted that the costs against them have been false.
The Uttar Pradesh authorities has been demanding a ban on PFI, alleging that it’s concerned in fuelling extremism and violence.
