New Delhi, India – This week, a Muslim journalist in India will complete 150 days in jail after he was arrested on his way to report on the death of a Dalit teenager days after she was gang-raped.
Siddique Kappan, 41, was arrested in October while attempting to reach Hathras, a small town in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, about 200km (124 miles) from the capital New Delhi.
On September 14, a 19-year-old Dalit young woman had been gang-raped in a field by four men belonging to the Thakur community, an influential caste among Hindus.
The young woman suffered serious injuries to her spinal cord due to the assault and died two weeks later at a hospital in New Delhi, triggering nationwide outrage and protests.
Journalist Siddique Kappan, who was released on a five-day interim bail to see his ailing mother, has returned to Mathura jail following the completion of the conditional relief that allowed only his near ones to be with him.
The visit, which was kept under wraps because of the gag order against speaking to reporters, began when Kappan was flown down to Kozhikode on February 17 evening and taken to his elder brother’s home in Vengara, Malappuram, the following morning, his wife Raihanath told The Telegraph on Tuesday.
“As per the order, we were not supposed to know about his arrival. But since we were yearning to see him after more than three months in jail, it was such a relief and excitement at the same time,” said Raihanath.
The Ernakulam district committee of the Kerala Union of Working Journalists has sought stringent action against miscreants who allegedly verbally abused a reporter of Suprabatham daily and tried to kn
KUWJ demands action against officer
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Journalists’ union petitions CM
Journalists’ union petitions CM
The Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) has demanded exemplary action against Prashant Nair, managing director of Kerala Shipping and Inland Navigation Corporation (KSINC), for responding with a sticker with sexual overtones when a woman journalist of a Malayalam daily sought to speak with him for a news story.
The KUWJ protested the officer’s ‘unseemly’ behaviour towards the journalist who was trying to get his response to a controversy involving the company headed by him and also took exception to the social media post made by the officer’s wife “which denigrated the entire media fraternity”. The union petitioned Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Chief Secretary Vishwas Mehta seeking action against the officer.