Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday wrote to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath requesting to ensure expert healthcare and humane treatment to jailed Malayali journalist Siddique Kappan. The letter was shared by CM on his official Twitter handle after a public outcry demanding his intervention.
Siddique Kappan has been lodged in Mathura jail for over 200 days after being arrested on his way to Hathras to report the caste rape killing in 2020. Kappan was arrested on 5 October 2020 and booked under UAPA, 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.
“It is reported that he is having diabetes and heart ailments. After getting infected with Covid-19, he has been admitted to KVM Hospital, Mathura. He is reportedly being kept chained to his bed even when his health condition is precarious,” Vijayan wrote in his letter.
“I request your good self to intervene in the matter so that humane treatment is accorded to Shri. Kappan. Expert health care, necessary for him, may also be seriously considered by shifting him to another super speciality hospital, where modern life-saving facilities are ensured. People in general and the media fraternity, in particular, are anxious to know about his predicament and human rights and are very much concerned about his plight. I request you to make sure that he gets all medical facilities” reads the letter.
On Saturday, Kappan’s lawyer moved to the Supreme Court petitioning immediate intervention to release Kappan from Mathura Medical College to Mathura Jail ‘as his life is in extreme danger’.
Raihanath, wife of Siddique Kaappan on Saturday alleged that hospital authorities are not allowing him to go to the toilet and he is handcuffed to the bed and is not allowed to move.
“He is urinating in a plastic bottle. He is a human being. He has to go to the toilet too, right,” Raihanath told media. #FreeSiddiqueKappan is trending in India on Sunday while prominent journalists and lawmakers joined the campaign against the UP government.
