Siddique Kappan discharged from AIIMS, taken back to jail without communication to his family, lawyer

Arrested journalist Siddique Kappan has been discharged from AIIMS in Delhi and taken back to Mathura Jail in Uttar Pradesh, Kappan's wife Raihanath told Newslaundry. Kappan, who is Covid positive, was shifted without any communication from the authorities to his family or lawyer.

Kappan was brought to Mathura Central Jail at 2.30 am today, the jail superintendent Shailendra Kumar Maitreya told the Quint, and has been kept in isolation because he still hasn't tested negative for Covid.

Kappan's lawyer, Wills Mathews, told the Quint that neither he nor the family were informed of Kappan's discharge and return to jail.

"The police are legally bound to tell the family and the lawyer...I reached out to them, but they told me that they cannot help me," he said. "All this is happening in a secretive manner for no good reason. Not only secretive, but the most illegal and immoral way. I say illegal because I believe this is against the spirit of the order of the Supreme Court that stated he be moved to AIIMS."

However, Maitreya told the Quint: "The accused can speak to the family every day from jail, what better can we do than that...I am answerable to the court, my job is not to call the family of each accused."

An acquaintance of Raihanath's told Newslaundry that Raihanath will file a complaint with the Supreme Court.

On April 30, the Supreme Court had directed the UP government to shift Kappan from a Mathura hospital to a government hospital in Delhi for treatment. Mathews had told the court that Kappan had been chained in the Mathura hospital and was so weak that he had collapsed in the washroom.

Kappan was arrested in October 2020, when he was on his way to report on the gangrape and murder of a Dalit girl by four upper caste Thakur men in Hathras. He was subsequently booked under the anti-terror law UAPA and sedition and has been in jail ever since.