The Supreme Court on Thursday granted bail to Thwaha Fasal, an MA journalism student arrested in a terror case two years ago in Kerala for suspected Maoist links.
While his family expressed relief, they demanded the CPM drop its ambivalence towards the anti-terror law UAPA, whose use against Fasal and a friend had earned Kerala’s Left government condemnation from rights activists.
Kerala police had arrested Fasal and Allan Shuaib, a law student, in November 2019 under the UAPA after seizing what they suspected to be pro-Maoist pamphlets, books and diary notes from them. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) later took over the case.
A Kochi NIA court granted bail to both students in September 2020 saying the agency had failed to establish even a prima facie case. Kerala High Court set aside Fasal’s bail in January this year while upholding Shuaib’s bail considering his mental health issues.
While granting bail to Fasal, the Supreme Court dismissed the NIA’s appeal against Shuaib’s bail.
Fasal’s elder brother Ijas Hassan, who had quit his CPM membership after his brother’s arrest, welcomed the apex court judgment.
Asked to comment on the CPM opposing the UAPA elsewhere but using it in Kerala, he told The Telegraph he didn’t agree with the party “watering down its opposition to the UAPA” and would “speak more on this once the case is over”.
Hassan said “certain members of the CPM and leaders of the Congress and the Indian Union Muslim League supported us in our legal fight”.
Unable to continue his MA journalism course from jail, Fasal has been pursuing an MA in rural development from IGNOU.
“I don’t know whether he will resume his journalism course after coming out. But he has lost two precious years,” Hassan said from his home in Kozhikode.
Fasal’s mother Jameela told reporters: “This (bail) is like a second birth for my son.”
Shuaib told a news channel that Thursday’s apex court decision was “a strong answer to many people”, apparently hinting at the Left Democratic Front government.
Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan had in December 2019 defended the arrests, insisting the two youths were “Maoists and not CPM workers” as some reports had claimed.
Rights activist C.R. Neelakandan, who had campaigned against the arrests, hit out at the state government again on Thursday.
“It was the state police that invoked the UAPA, which naturally brought in the NIA, and it was the state government that called them suspected Maoists,” he said.
“Let’s not forget that eight suspected Maoists have been gunned down in three incidents in Kerala since the LDF came to power in 2016.”
CPM state committee member P. Jayarajan defended Vijayan. “The chief minister had only stated the fact that they (Thwaha and Shuaib) have links with Maoists,” he said.
