Kerala High Court granted bail to Popular Front of India (PFI) leaders arrested in connection with terrorist activities. Bail has been given to 17 people, including the accused, in the Palakkad RSS leader Sreenivas Krishna’s murder case.
Sreenivas was a former RSS Palakkad district Sharirik Shikshan Pramukh. He was hacked to death by PFI terrorists inside his shop at Melemuri in Palakkad city on 16 April 2022.
CCTV cameras showed five assailants arriving on three bikes and stopping in front of his shop. Witnesses confirmed that the killers carried swords and immobilised Sreenivas by hacking his legs first.
They continued the assault and ensured that the victim had no chance of survival. The assassins ran back to their scooters and escaped from the area. Even though Sreenivas was taken to hospital, he died on the way.
Bail has been granted with certain conditions. The accused should not leave the state. Their passport must be submitted to the trial court. They must report to the police station weekly and sign the register.
The terrorists are allowed to use only one mobile number. This number should be given to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) officers. The court has also directed that the location of the mobile phone should not be turned off. GPS should be enabled on mobile phones. The court also stated in the bail order that the investigating officer should be able to track the terrorists.
The Kerala High Court rejected the bail application of nine others. PFI state leaders Karamana Ashraf Moulavi, Yahya Thangal, Abdul Rauf, Abdul Sathar and others were denied bail by the court. The bail was rejected based on the observation that they would start organising again if granted bail.
Thangal is the 45th accused in the Srinivas murder case, and PFI former state secretary Rauf, who the NIA arrested, is the 41st accused. According to the investigation team, Rauf was one of the principal planners of the murder.
Rauf and Sathar were among the leaders who had called for a hartal in Kerala on 23 September 2022 after the central government banned the PFI under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). Widespread violence had broken out in the state in connection with the hartal.
The nine persons whose bail plea was rejected by the court are also accused in the murder case of Sreenivas Krishna. This was one of the cases that led to the nationwide ban of the PFI.
A division bench of Justice Ak Jayasankaran Nambiar and Additional Judge VM Shyam Kumar granted bail to those accused based on witness testimony alone. Nine persons have been granted bail in the Palakkad Sreenivas murder case, and eight persons have been granted bail in the PFI ban case.
Some claimed the bail was a setback for the NIA. Are the real losers the law-abiding citizens of our country who still believe in our system?
