Jamaat-e-Islami Hind’s (JIH) mouthpiece Madhyamam recently honored Josy Joseph, the co-owner of the online publication azhimukham.com. News Editor N. Rajesh Memorial Award was presented to ‘investigative’ journalist Joseph at Kozhikode on September 9.

Siddique Kappan, another ‘journalist,’ was an online correspondent of Azhimukham and was elected ‘unopposed’ as secretary of the Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) in 2019. Kappan was arrested for attempting to incite caste violence over the tragic death of a Hindu SC girl in Hathras, UP on October 5, 2020, and KUWJ has worked hard to get Kappan released on bail. It later became apparent that Kappan worked for the since-banned Popular Front of India (PFI). 

Kappan was detained under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), a law that the KUWJ selectively terms ‘draconian.’ It was later revealed that influential lawyers like Wills Mathews and Kapil Sibal were pressed into service to get Kappan released. Supreme Court granted bail to Kappan in the UAPA case, but he continues to be in a Lucknow jail in another PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) case. KUWJ also intervened and got the terror suspect ‘treated’ at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi for an alleged Covid infection. 

Kappan has strong ties to the PFI and its student wing, Campus Front of India (CFI). He is a part of a larger conspiracy to spread terror and incite religious discord, the Uttar Pradesh government informed the Supreme Court. Kappan was associated with top PFI terrorist leadership, such as P Koya, Kamal KP and Oma Salaam.

It was stated that the inquiry had shown that co-accused Rauf Sharif (National General Secretary, CFI, chief fund-raiser, and money launderer for PFI/CFI) had ordered the delegation to go to Hathras and had also paid for the trip. Sharif was arrested by the ED (Enforcement Directorate) on December 12, 2020, from the Thiruvananthapuram International Airport while attempting to flee the country to Oman.

Reports stated that ED discovered around INR 2.21 crores in the bank accounts of Rauf, a qualified Chartered Accountant. ED has evidence of PFI receiving over 100 crores in its bank accounts over the years, most of it deposited in cash. Monies received were then funneled through various sources to operatives like Kappan on the ground. 

UP government reminded the court that PFI-backed terrorists had brutally hacked off the hands of  Christian Lecturer TJ Thomas of Newman College in 2010. Kerala police raided a PFI weapons training terrorist camp at Narath, Kerala, in 2013, and the NIA took over the investigation.

Why would KUWJ journalists such as those associated with communist mouthpiece Deshabhimani work hard to release a suspected PFI terrorist cum ‘journalist’ is anybody’s guess. They are not alone. Other anti-Hindu propaganda media outlets like The Newslaundry, The Wire, The News Minute, and left-liberal media houses like Indian Express, The Hindu, and The Times of India have joined the chorus to free Kappan. They continue to blame the Uttar Pradesh government, which initially arrested Kappan. 

The Kappan vs Joseph spat

Kappan’s Whatsapp chats with PFI founder P Koya were recently revealed in the charge sheet submitted to the court by the UP police. This was when Kappan’s harsh remarks against Joseph became public. These chats were revealed after the award ceremony. 

The KUWJ that remained silent when Joseph was rewarded has now triggered a controversy and objected to the award. KUWJ claims that Joseph ‘mentally tortured’ Kappan. 

For the record, Josy Jospeh was earlier National Security Editor of far-left ‘The Hindu’ newspaper and had mocked Hindu deaths in the Puttingal temple fire tragedy in Kollam. In 2021, he penned a book that peddles conspiracy theories about Bharat’s security establishment and intelligence agencies forming a ‘deep state’ that works against democracy. The truth is that Bharat’s national security establishment was wrecked from within during ‘secular’ coalitions like Gujral’s United Front and Sonia Gandhi’s UPA (which likes of Joseph would like to see back in power) with people like Home Minister P Chidambaram and VP Hamid Ansari at the helm of affairs.

Back in 2019, Koya was angered by a letter sent by George Kurien, vice-chairman of the National Minorities Commission, to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, asking for an NIA inquiry into grooming jihad. Kappan sent the news about George’s letter to Koya in the morning, which appeared in The Hindu newspaper on 26 September 2019.

This news incensed Koya, who asked Kappan, “Which party does this Kurien belong to?” Kappan informed him that George was a BJP leader. Koya replied that ‘Mary Magdalene was the first grooming jihad victim’. In the Whatsapp chats that followed, Koya constantly reminded Kappan to send him a copy of the letter sent by George to the home minister.

Kappan vented that Azhimukham editorial board chairman Joseph forced him to work on ‘anti-Muslim’ news in Azhimukham. Joseph also warned him not to publish information that might help the PFI terrorists, claimed Kappan. He added that he was forced to report the atrocities Islamist clerics unleashed in different parts of Bharat.

Kappan told Koya that he was on the verge of resigning due to the ‘Islamophobia’ in Azhimukham. Koya reassured his disciple that he had intervened and blocked a significant project that could have gone to Joseph and Azhimukham. Details about this project remain unknown. These Whatsapp chats are from one day before Kappan embarked on his fateful Hathras trip. 

Koya also instructed Kappan to send five copies of the September issue of Caravan magazine on the Delhi riots to Joseph. Those articles tried hard to paint the radical Islamists who unleashed violence as victims. This Koya-Kappan Whatsapp chat occurred on October 4, 2020, and Kappan left for Hathras on the 5th. 

Besides his PFI circle, Kappan informed only Azhimukham editor KN Ashok about his proposed Hathras trip. It is suspected that Ashok notified Joseph about the same. Joseph must have understood that the PFI leadership intervened following Kappan’s complaint, and prevented the project he was supposed to get. 

Allegedly, the intelligence agencies received the details of Kappan and his team’s Hathras trip from someone at Azhimukham. Kappan and his gang were arrested at the Mathura toll plaza. Back then, Joseph shed tears over Kappan’s arrest, but recent developments indicate that he was the one who worked to oust Kappan from Azhimukham. 

PFI national council member Prof. P Koya was arrested from Kerala on September 22 by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the Islamist outfit was subsequently banned for terrorist acts.