Thursday, March 28, 2024

Mohd Alam, cab driver accused in Hathras UAPA case, walks out of jail after 823 days

After over two years of being incarcerated in the Hathras conspiracy case, Mohammad Alam, 31, walked out of Lucknow jail on Thursday, 5 January, Advocate Sheeran Alavi confirmed to Maktoob.

Alam secured bail in the UAPA case in August last year and another bail in a money laundering case two months ago, paving way for his release. Lawyers said the unprecedented delay in his release was due to a delay in proceedings.

On 5 October 2020, Alam was arrested along with journalist Siddique Kappan and Muslim student activists Atikur Rahman and Masood Khan. He was driving others to Hathras to cover the rape and murder of the 19-year-old Dalit girl.

A bench of Allahabad High Court, while giving bail in the UAPA case, stated that no incriminating article or evidence was recovered from his possession, making him the first of the accused to receive bail but he was still not released.

His wife, Bushra Alam, 30, has repeatedly stated that Alam “has been kept in jail for over 2 years for nothing” and that he had not committed any crime.

In July last year, the Supreme Court came down on the UP government and Allahabad High Court for not taking prompt action to release on bail undertrial prisoners who have been languishing in jail for many years.

In November, SC also sought details of tribals in jail despite having received bail.

Advocate Saifan Shaikh told Maktoob, “The Supreme Court clearly states that once he/she permits the surety, he can be set free within the same day, but in UP, I don’t know which law they are following. I’m going to challenge this whole process.”

The Allahabad high court on 23 December also granted bail to Kappan in a money laundering case. In September, he also got bail in the UAPA case.

‘UP STF Deliberately Delayed the Process’

Shaikh stated that his release was “halted unnecessarily” and that they had given the sureties from their end, but the verification process has taken a long.

Every bail bond has a two-tier process. First is the personal verification by the STF/the investigative agency and the second one is of the property. One is by the agency and another by the tehsil office.

Alavi told Maktoob, “Alam’s family members and friends stood up for him as the surety from Rampur.  There were four sureties in total. Two in UAPA and two in PMLA case. Rs 1 lakh in UAPA and Rs 2 lakhs in ED case. But in UP, the STF, the tehsil verification will extend for days to check the surety and property. They only allow Indian posts, so that also took time. Then the concerned department gives the outward number, and the process goes on. At the most takes 10 days for the whole verification but in Alam’s case, they did not verify promptly in the stipulated time.”

Alavi stated that when the bail bonds were submitted and sent to Rampur, there was also a clerical error as some of them reached the wrong address and a few of the details were missing from the documents.

Hence, the lawyers filed an application for resending the bail bonds. 

“After we had sent the bail bonds again, we requested the persons who stood as sureties in Rampur to follow up locally which they did. They told us that the STF had not done the personal identification,” said Alavi.

He further noted, “We had hoped that by the end of December 2022, we would be done with all the applications and he would be out, but last closing day, one of the envelopes- one of the verification had not been sent to the court. His release should not have taken so long.”

Bushra and Alam’s brother Shoaib Khan had been running from pillar to post to fight for his release which had taken a toll on them mentally and financially.

Bushra repeatedly emphasised one thing: that Alam was not related to the case in any way, nor did he know the other accused from before.

“He’s just a cab driver who can travel anywhere and was not aware that this one trip would cost so much,” she had told Maktoob.

When Bushra heard the news about the first time he got bail in August, she said, “When I heard about the bail, I got so much hope, I have thanked the lawyers and God many times. I keep thinking we will finally be together. But now they are taking their time to free him again.”

Now, Alam walks out of jail after over 800 days.

Aliza Noor
Aliza Noor
Aliza Noor is a multimedia journalist and she lives in Lucknow.
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