A group of eleven parliament members from Kerala wrote a joint representation to the newly appointed Chief Justice of India, Justice NV Ramana, seeking an urgent hearing of the matter writ petition of arrested Kerala journalist Siddique Kappan.
The MPs who signed the petitions are Congress’s Lok Sabha MPs K Sudharakaran, K Muraleedharan, VK Sreekandan, Ramya Haridas, Benny Behanan, TN Prathapan, Dean Kuriakose and Anto Antony and Muslim League’s MPs ET Mohammed Basheer and PV Abdul Wahab and Revolutionary Socialist Party’s MP NK Premachandran.
The joint petition comes at a time the Supreme Court has been petitioned for an immediate intervention to release Siddique Kappan from Mathura Medical College to Mathura Jail ‘as his life is in extreme danger.”
“The wife of Siddique Kappan, came to know that…Kappan is chained like an animal in a cot of the Medical College Hospital, Mathura, without mobility, and he neither could take food, nor could go to toilet for the last more than 4 days, and is very critical,” read the plea by Advocate Wills Mathews.
Kappan who was arrested on 5 October 2020, along with three Muslim youths including a cab driver, while he was on his way to Hathras to report on the gang rape and death of a Dalit woman, tested positive for the novel coronavirus and was admitted to the hospital in Mathura this week.
“His condition is serious and he needs better treatment. We, therefore implore you to save shri Kappan’s life by giving him an urgent hearing in the matter requesting for issue of necessary orders to shift from Mathura Medical College Hospital to All India Institue of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi,” read the joint representation by MPs from Kerala.
This very moment, Shri Kappan is battling the coronavirus at its severity. Unable to consume food and with denied right to go to toilet for four days, he has become extremely weak. It is shocking beyond words that such grave violation of human rights is happening in our India, a democracy,” it added.
The MPs from Kerala also asked to CJI to provide an interim relief to Kappan until the disposal of his Habeus Corpus application.
