Mathura: The wife of Keralite journalist Siddique Kappan, arrested in Uttar Pradesh, has sought the immediate intervention of Chief Justice of India N V Ramana to release him from Mathura Medical
College Hospital as his "life is in extreme danger".
In her letter, Raihanth Kappan states that Kappan, who has recently tested positive for COVID-19, is chained like an animal in a cot of the Medical College Hospital, Mathura, without mobility, and that he is not able to take food and go to toilet for the last more than 4 days.
"If immediate corrective steps are not taken, it will result in his untimely death," the letter states.
Kappan has been to KM Medical College in Mathura after he tested positive for COVID-19. His wife Kappan narrated his ordeal to her when he called her recently from someone's phone. According to her, he wanted to be sent back to the jail instead of being tortured in the hospital.
Kappan has been jailed for more than six months on charges of sedition and terrorism.
Senior superintendent of the Mathura prison, Shailendra Maitrey, said that he was shifted for Covid treatment on Wednesday.
Maitrey said that he fell inside the barrack on Tuesday night and was shifted to prison hospital for treatment, where he tested positive for COVID-19.
However, two other prisoners, Atikur Rahman and Mohammad Alam, who were with him in the same barrack, have tested negative for the virus.
Kappan, who is a diabetic patient, broke his jaw when he fell at the jail.
Kappan was arrested with three others, Masood Ahmad, Atikur Rahman, and Mohammad Alam, on October 5, 202, while they were on their way to Hathras to meet the family of a Dalit girl, who was allegedly gang-raped and murdered.
They were later booked for alleged links with the Popular Front of India (PFI), an extremist Islamic organisation.
MPs write to CJI, request to shift him to AIIMS
Soon after Indian Union Muslim League leader P K Kunhalikutty and Congress's Kannur MP K Sudhakaran writting letters to the Chief Justice of India seeking his intervention to ensure immediate medical aid to Kappan, 11 more UDF MPs followed their steps. The MPs demanded that Kappan be shifted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi for advanced treatment.
Kunhalikutty has also made the request to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and UP CM Yogi Adityanath. He also urged Pinarayi Vijayan to intervene in the matter.
Recently, the Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) had led an additional rejoinder in the Supreme Court refuting the allegations made by the Uttar Pradesh government against Kappan.
The KUWJ has denied that Kappan has any connection with the PFI.
