"It has been a year that Siddique is behind bars. He has a family. I do not have a job, he was our breadwinner. The police have shattered our happiness. This is neither the India I had seen nor the India I had dreamt of," writes Raihanath Kappan.

Siddikka [Siddique Kappan] was arrested on 5 October, 2020, by the Uttar Pradesh police. He had called me in the night, the day before his arrest and after that, I did not get any calls from him. I thought he might have gone for the interview. I started feeling nervous when he didn’t call me in the night. I was afraid; he might have fallen sick, as he was diabetic. One of the relatives, who came to know about the arrest from Asianet News the next morning, informed us. That is when we came to know he was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police.

I was appalled. I was hearing something I hadn’t even thought of in my wildest dreams. A lot of thoughts were running in my mind — What? When? Where and How? I didn’t know anything or anyone else.

And then I started getting calls from our journalist friends in Delhi. They told me he will be released soon. I was numb but was relieved knowing he is good and healthy. The news that came to us was not about his release but that he was charged with the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

'Didn't Know Anything About Him for a Month'

He began his career in journalism in 2011. Before that, he was abroad. He chose journalism as he had a passion and love for this profession. His reports were never misleading, he always made sure that what he penned down was the truth, even if the process was risky. And that’s why he was in Hathras. If you ask his friends, they will tell you how polite and friendly he was towards everyone. He was never a grumpy man.

Though he didn’t have big dreams, he had always wished to complete the half-constructed home of ours and to live with his family and mother.

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It was after a month that I and his advocate were able to talk to him, that too when the Supreme Court let us. We didn’t know anything about him until then, whether he was alive, what was happening to him. We knew nothing. The Kerala Union Of Working Journalists (KUWJ) Union had filed a habeas corpus petition in the Supreme Court when Siddique was missing. Our advocate went to meet Siddique at Mathura jail, to file a bail application as directed by the Supreme Court. But he was not allowed.

Now, the case is in the Mathura Court. The police still haven’t given us the chargesheet. We can only approach bail in the High Court once we receive the chargesheet; we are in a state of not being able to do anything.

They haven’t given us the chargesheet, and we fear that they haven’t written any of the suspicions in the chargesheet and are writing and rewriting new charges.

Now what we see in newspapers is that Kappan was not arrested from Toll Plaza and had gone further to deliver a speech and give away some cash. They say they have eyewitnesses for the same. These are empty accusations and the police are charging him as per their wish.

 There Was Nothing to Hide

That he speaks for Muslims and he writes to goad Muslims are some other accusations against him. He had interviewed the wives of two Delhi-based professors who were booked under the UAPA, and because of that, they are trying to link him with the Bhima Koregaon case. In his career, he had interviewed and reported a lot of cases where justice was denied.

Siddique had interviewed Gujarat IPS Officer Sanjeev Bhatt’s wife over the phone. The investigating officer said that this was enough to put him behind bars for five years, against which he would have to fight a legal battle. His laptop had a file of UAPA cases, which he had obtained under the Right to Information Act, a few movies, PDFs of books, and all the news that had been written for the online portal ‘Azhimukham’. There is nothing to be hidden and all the news on his laptop was published.