Raihanath Kappan, wife of Malayalam journalist Siddique Kappan, on Friday thanked the Supreme Court for granting bail to her husband and vowed to fight on till he had been freed of all charges.

“The Supreme Court understood that a man has been jailed for two years over nothing. So I thank the Supreme Court for granting him bail,” she said in Delhi, where she had arrived from Kerala for the hearing.

“Anyway, they have trapped him. So we have to fight this out. We know he will come out innocent. The trial will make it clear that there is nothing in this case.”

She had a message for Malayalam reporters in Delhi, where Kappan worked as a retainer for the news portal azhimukham.com and functioned as secretary of the Delhi unit of the Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ), which has been waging a legal battle for him.

“He is your colleague who was incarcerated for two years on hollow charges. That he spent two years in jail is not something to be taken lightly,” she said.

Kappan was arrested in Uttar Pradesh on October 5, 2020, with co-travellers who were members of the Popular Front of India, while headed to Hathras to cover the rape and murder of a Dalit teenager.

He was accused of plotting to foment caste unrest and booked under the anti-terror law UAPA. After spending months in a Mathura jail, he was shifted to a Lucknow jail.

Raihanath said she would have a discussion with her lawyer before deciding what to do next. “I haven’t decided to go to Lucknow or what to do next. I will talk to the lawyer and then decide (the next course of action).”

She said she had visited Lucknow before heading to Delhi for Friday’s apex court hearing, but could not meet her husband.

The couple’s nine-year-old daughter, Mehnaz Kappan, had issued a fervent appeal for her father, invoking his constitutional freedoms, on August 15, the 75th anniversary of Independence.

“I am Mehnaz Kappan, daughter of Siddique Kappan, a journalist who has been put behind bars and denied all rights allowed to a citizen,” the Class IV student had said while addressing the Independence Day event at her school in Vengara, Malappuram, where she studies.

She has two elder brothers, Muzzammil, 19, and Zidhane, 14.

Earlier, on a petition from the KUWJ, the Supreme Court had ordered adequate medical care for Kappan, who had tested positive for Covid-19 and suffered from diabetes, heart ailments, high blood pressure and injuries caused by a fall in the prison bathroom.

The apex court also granted him five days’ interim bail on February 15 last year to visit his 90-year-old mother, Khadija Kitty, who was on her deathbed.

Kappan was flown down to Kozhikode on February 17, 2021, and taken to his elder brother’s home in Vengara, Malappuram, where his mother was. He was escorted by six policemen from Uttar Pradesh and 25 Kerala police personnel stood guard.

His mother passed away in June last year.